Wisconsin Basketball: Keys to the Game vs. No. 8 Illinois
The Wisconsin Badgers will wrap up their two-game road trip with one of their toughest matchups of the season. The No. 8 Illinois Fighting Illini, coming off a heartbreaking 85-82 overtime loss at Michigan State, are hungry for a victory at home.
Wisconsin most recently suffered its own disheartening defeat, falling to Indiana in Assembly Hall, 78-77. The Badgers are looking to move up in the Big Ten and NCAA Tournament races, as they’ve remained a middle-of-the-pack team at 16-7 (8-4 in the Big Ten).
Illinois is 12-1 at home, with a 20-4 season record (11-2 conf.). Led by freshman sensation Keaton Wagler, this elite rotation runs just about eight men deep with six high-impact players. This will be an uphill battle, but the Badgers have shown they can beat the best on the road. Here are three keys to the game:
Run Illinois Off the Line
The Fighting Illini own the nation’s top offense, according to KenPom, which doesn’t bode well for a visiting team that has struggled on the defensive end. Much of that inability to stop the ball comes from the frontcourt. Outside of Nolan Winter, who was the only big man that played against Indiana, the Badgers lack any sort of inside presence.
Brad Underwood will certainly look to take advantage of that, but his team also has plenty of floor spacers. Tomislav Ivisic, David Mirkovic and Zvonimir Ivisic are all forwards and centers shooting above 35% from three this season. The bigs aren’t afraid to let it fly.
The Badgers will need to run Illinois off the line, as the Fighting Illini are shooting 35.7% from three this season and 36.3% at home. Wisconsin may have weaknesses in the paint, but it can’t afford to lose on a plethora of threes from a hot shooting team
Ball Movement
With Kylan Boswell (broken hand) out, Illinois will rely even more on its oversized guards to stop Wisconsin’s guard duo, Nick Boyd and John Blackwell, who are averaging 38.5 of the team’s 83 points per game.
Boyd gets a lot of his points in the paint, while Blackwell is more of a three-level scorer. The similarity is that the two dribble A LOT. Some of that is due to the lack of shot creation from the rest of the team, but it’s also just the way they get space.
The Badgers aren’t going to get many good looks from simply relying on creating shots off the dribble, and as much as that may seem obvious, entering a hostile Big Ten environment causes opponents to panic. Wisconsin will need to constantly move on and off the ball to get effective points and keep up with the nation’s top offense.
Let It Fly From Outside
Wagler, Andrej Stojakovic and Jake Davis pose an average height of just over 6-foot-6 with significant wingspans. It will be extremely tough for Boyd and Blackwell to get to their sweet spots. Boyd loves to go downhill and float shots over defenders, while Blackwell does the same, but in the midrange.
When the Badgers took down No. 2 Michigan on the road in January, they shot an incredible 45% from three, with 33 of their 58 shot attempts coming from downtown. Against a bigger and more aggressive opponent, that has to be replicated with the hope that they hit shots through plenty of movement, as noted before.
36.1% of Illinois’ points given up this season have come from threes, which ranks 322nd of 365 teams. In three of its four losses, the opponent shot at least 36% from three. Wisconsin will need to win off its biggest strength: floor spacing.
