Career Night From Flowers Lifts UW Past Winthrop
MADISON, Wis.-
Wisconsin guard Michael Flowers scored a career-high 21 points, including the field goal that forced overtime, as the 11th-ranked Badgers beat Winthrop 82-79 Monday at the Kohl Center.
Alando Tucker also scored 21 points for Wisconsin, who survived a Kohl Center-record 15 3-pointers from the Eagles and a 31-point performance by Torrell Martin.
The Badgers (8-1) have won four in a row and improved to 4-2 in overtime games under head coach Bo Ryan. They also became the first team to score more than 73 points against Winthrop this season. The Eagles (6-3) were only allowing 56 points per game heading into tonight’s contest.
Flowers hit two free throws with 6:52 remaining in the second half to give Wisconsin a 57-46 lead. But Winthrop hit five 3-pointers down the stretch to close the gap. Michael Jenkins hit three of his five 3-pointers in the final six minutes of regulation. His third gave Winthrop a 65-63 lead with 54 seconds remaining.
Wisconsin guard Kammron Taylor missed a 3 with 33 seconds left, but the ball bounced off a Winthrop player and rolled out-of-bounds. Tucker had two open looks to tie the game, but missed. Flowers rebounded Tucker’s second attempt in the lane and scored high off the glass with his left hand to tie the game at 65-65.
Martin had a wide-open look from outside the three-point line as time expired, but his attempt bounced off the front of the rim.
Flowers hit a 3 on UW’s opening possession of overtime to give Wisconsin a two-point lead. Brian Butch hit a jumper and Tucker hit a 3 from the corner that extended the lead to 73-67 with two minutes left to play.
The Badgers led by nine with 45 seconds left and held on in the closing seconds to secure the win.
Winthrop finished 15-of-25 from 3-point range, but were outrebounded 40-18 in the contest. Wisconsin was 24-of-34 from the free-throw line to counter the Eagles’ long-range attack. Winthrop was only 6-of-10.
Martin scored the first 11 points scored by Winthrop and finished one point shy of his career high of 32 set against Liberty last season. He was 11-of-18 from the field, including 7-of-11 from beyond the arc.
Butch finished one rebound shy of his fifth career double-double. He had 17 points. Wisconsin made five of its six field goals in overtime and shot 64 percent from inside the arc. The Badgers were 6-of-25 from three-point range.
Post-Game Notes
•This was the first meeting between the two schools.
•Tonight’s attendance was 17,190 – the 59th consecutive sellout crowd at the Kohl Center.
•Winthrop is the first team to ever hit 15 3-pointers against Wisconsin. The Eagles set a new Kohl Center record and Torrell Martin tied the Kohl Center individual mark by hitting seven 3-pointers.
•Wisconsin is the first team to score more than 73 points against Winthrop this season.
•Wisconsin played overtime for the first time since Nov. 19, 2005, when UW beat Eastern Kentucky 95-89 in double overtime of the championship game of the Paradise Jam.
•Wisconsin is 4-2 in overtime under Bo Ryan
•Torrell Martin scored Winthrop’s first 11 points and had 18 in the first half. He finished with a season-high 31 points, one shy of his career high set against Liberty Feb. 20, 2006.
•UW led 34-31 at halftime, the eighth time Wisconsin has led at the half this season (nine games).
•Wisconsin scored on its first six possessions of the second half, outscoring Winthrop 12-2.
•Alando Tucker scored 10 or more points for the 31st time in his last 32 games. He’s scored 20 or more points 33 times in his career.
•Tucker recorded his 600th career field goal. He has 604 total, good for fifth all-time at Wisconsin.
•Brian Butch picked up his 300th career rebound. He has 307 for his career.
•Michael Flowers scored his 300th career point. He has 310 for his career.
•UW has won 10 consecutive games at home dating back to last season and is 79-5 at the Kohl Center since 2001.
•Wisconsin made more free throws (24) than its opponent attempted (10) for the fifth time this season.
•Wisconsin is 4-0 against teams currently in the Big South Conference.
•Winthrop has made six NCAA tournament appearances in eight seasons under head coach Gregg Marshall.
Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan Post-Game Quotes
On Michael Flowers’ shot with 10.6 seconds left in regulation: “It wasn’t just that one, in order for him to get that opportunity we had to fight for the other ones. They were scrapping, we were scrapping, we get a couple offensive rebounds, one ball goes off of them last, he gets the opportunity. He’s an opportunistic young man. Plays hard, plays smart, he’s improved every year and we think he’s got a lot more improvement coming.”
On overcoming a poor shooting percentage: “I tried to say this last year at the North Dakota State game for example. We shoot 20-some percent but we get hustle opportunities. What won that game tonight, was not field goal percentage but hustle opportunities. We touched the post, off of those offensive rebounds, how many foul shots did we get? And if you can get to the line that many times by hustle … What are you going to do if the shots aren’t going down? We had some pretty good looks against that zone, then we started missing, then it compounds itself but we continued to make them have to play defense so that they didn’t get away with playing the zone, not working and then having a lot of legs down at the other end. If we’d have been taking quick, bad shots, they would have beaten us by 20. But by us being patient, changing sides of the floor, they were packing it in, taking some passing lanes away and they were doing exactly what they needed to do. And we needed to hit some outside shots if they were going to stay that tight but we still touched the post. We still attacked and that’s the only way you get to the free-throw line. I coached at other places where people are always complaining about how many free throws we shot, and the other teams are taking more jump shots than us. We touch the paint, we try to. If you touch the paint, that’s how you can get to the free throw line. But they have such good three-point shooters, they can sting. They had a couple runs where we tried to give ourselves some space, but they come right back and get them. That’s 45 points on 25 shots. That’s pretty good points per possession.”
On his expectations of Winthrop: “You can tell by the way both teams were playing, there wasn’t any lack of respect for one another. That was a hard-fought, toe-to-toe, December game that hopefully for both of us, will help us in conference play.”
Winthrop Head Coach Gregg Marshall Post-Game Quotes
On whether the loss stings more knowing Torrell Martin and Michael Jenkins combined to score 58 points: “Oh it stings. It stings. Torrell Martin, I thought, was the best player on the floor tonight. He just was terrific. Michael Jenkins really shot it beautifully. Craig Bradshaw did not play well and he knows that. He can play much better, so I mean 10 points for him in 39 minutes in not that good. He can play better. But those three guys scoring the points is insignificant. It’s just the fact that I thought we played very well, and had every right to win the game.”
On the rebound disparity: “That’s the part that we’ve got to work on. That’s the part that disappoints me the most. I’m certainly not upset with my team, but if there was anything that I could go back to change and win the game going away, we’d rebound better. We didn’t rebound well for most of the night. And our bigs have to do better. Our guards in the zone have to find guys and rebound better. But still, we will pick that apart and will coach the crap out of them when we get back. The bottom line is I’m not going to in any way, right now, diminish the effort and the poise and just the overall game that we played. And that would be something that would lend itself to some criticism, and I will certainly get into that at the appropriate time.”
On the end of the game when Wisconsin got three shots off: “We just couldn’t get a rebound. We couldn’t get a rebound and the ball hit the floor a couple times and they kept coming up with it, so a credit to them. That was a big-time effort by them and they got the shot that they needed and finally put it in the basket.”
