Madison — It’s starting to look like the Badgers have found their groove.
Behind 17 points and seven rebounds from Marcus Landry and a great all around game by Joe Krabbenhoft, the Wisconsin men’s basketball team won it’s fourth game in a row, defeating Ohio State 55-50.
Buckeyes leading scorer Evan Turner gave UW all it could handle, scoring 23 points and handing out five assists. But as was the case with the Buckeyes as a whole, Turner had a hard time taking care of the ball. The sophomore committed six of Ohio State’s 19 turnovers.
“We felt coming into the game the keys were going to be taking care of the basketball and rebounding the ball,” Ohio State head coach Thad Matta said. “We didn’t do either one of them very well, and that was probably the difference.”
Those turnovers, along with a 32-22 rebounding advantage, allowed UW to win despite allowing Ohio State to shoot 55 percent from the field.
“If we don’t get them to turn it over,” UW head coach Bo Ryan said, “we have no chance.”
The biggest of those turnovers came with Ohio State trailing by two with 47 seconds left.
Turner, who scored 15 of his 23 in the second half, tried to penetrate from the left wing.
Krabbenhoft, Turner’s shadow most of the game, stuck right with the Turner, and as he tried to spin into the lane Turner lost the ball and Landry was there to scoop it up.
From that point, the Buckeyes forced the Badgers to score from the foul line. Krabbenhoft came up big once again, sinking both freebies to give the Badgers a four-point lead. All told, the Badgers would make 5-of-6 free throws in the final 40 seconds to seal the victory.
After falling as low as ninth in the Big Ten standings less than two weeks ago, the Badgers now find themselves just a game and a half out of third place.
“You can tell we’ve learned from tough past games with the way we finished,” Landry said.
But a string of empty possessions earlier in the second half allowed Ohio State to stick around when Wisconsin seemed to have taken control.
After Tim Jarmusz hit a three to give UW its largest lead of the night at 44-39, the Badgers scored just one point their next seven times with the ball. The Buckeyes capitalized, pulling ahead at 46-45 before Jon Leuer hit a 17-foot jumper to give the Badgers the lead back.
Turner then scored on a put-back to return the lead to the Buckeyes.
Down one and with the shot clock winding down, Krabbenhoft took a pass from freshman Jordan Taylor and buried a three from the left win in front of William Buford to give the Badgers a two-point lead and bring the Kohl Center crowd to its feet.
“The shot clock was down so I had to put it up,” Krabbenhoft said.
That then set the stage for Krabbenhoft’s heroics on the defensive end.
When it was all done, the Badgers accomplished what they had yet to in the Big Ten season: turn a hard-fought game into a win.
“You just have to find a way,” Ryan said.
Lately, the Badgers have been doing just that.