BadgerBlitz - Takeaways from No.23 Wisconsin's 70-57 Win at Michigan State (2024)

This was not the Michigan State team that was ranked fourth to begin the preseason, a Spartans team that even received a first-place vote from a Louisville television reporter.

These Spartans have been reeling since losing the season opener to James Madison, playing a tough schedule that hasn’t yielded results. To make matters worse, veteran forward Malik Hall – who has been a problem in the past for the Badgers - was limited to 13 minutes because of the flu.

But it’s still Michigan State in the Breslin Center, an arena that the Badgers had never won three straight games in. That changed on Tuesday night following another impressive performance that ended with a 70-57 Wisconsin victory in the Big Ten opener for both teams.

Dominant is a word associated with several recent victories for No.23 Wisconsin (7-2, 1-0) and this one falls into that category next to its neutral site win over No.23 Virginia and its wire-to-wire win on Saturday over No.3 Marquette.

Here are my takeaways from Wisconsin’s 13-point victory.

Currently, this is no national award for transfer of the year. If there was, A.J. Storr would be well on his way to becoming a finalist for the hardware.

Storr is providing the dimension Wisconsin missed last season – a wing with athleticism who can create his shot and defend multiple positions. That was on full display against the Spartans.

Tying his UW season high with 22 points, Storr was active around the rim, finishing with five rebounds and going 2-for-3 on layups. He was on point with his jumper, going 2-for-2 on jump shots. He was deadly with his perimeter game, going 4-for-6 on three-point shots including one that beat the halftime buzzer.

Since missing one free throw in each of his first two games, Storr has made 20 in a row and leads the Big Ten in free throw shooting at 92.3 percent (24-26). All that production was the reason Wisconsin outscored Michigan State by 28 points when he was on the floor and increased his team-leading point total to 14.2 points per game.

“He has grown probably as much as anybody,” head coach Greg Gard said. “I’ve always viewed him as a freshman, even though he’s had a year of college experience simply because everything that we do is new to him on both ends of the floor. He’s playing off two feet more.”

Storr sometimes gets too aggressive, trying to drive gaps that aren’t there which results in turnovers or disjointed possessions, but it’s hard to argue that the sophom*ore’s aggression is rubbing off on his teammates.

“He’s that tailback who is a home-run hitter,” Gard said. “He can (go) one yard, one yard, one yard, and then all of a sudden, bam, he looks for 70. He adds an element to us, adds a dynamic that we obviously need and appreciate.”

With only three three-pointers made on the season, Michigan State took the approach of intentionally not guarding Steven Crowl on the perimeter. It turned out to be a bad gamble.

Those shots got the confidence going for Crowl and funneled down to the rest of the team, resulting in Crowl going 4-for-4 on perimeter shots and Wisconsin making a season-high 10 three-pointers on 23 attempts.

Crowl finished with a season-high 18 points, the sixth time in nine games he’s reached double figures.

“It gave us some confidence and it changed what they had to do defensively from packing it in (the paint),” Gard said. “We got the floor opened up a little bit, and we were able to play at the rim a little bit more. One compliments the other.”

While the three-pointers made up for his 2-for-8 percentage inside the arc, Crowl added six rebounds and a season-high five assists.

Wisconsin and Michigan State shot an identical 45.1 percent from the field, but the Badgers made four more three-pointers on four more attempts which was a big difference in the game.

Three-point shooting was expected to be one of Wisconsin’s strengths this season, especially returning most of a rotation that shot 34.2 percent behind the perimeter last season. Since shooting 50 percent in the opener, the Badgers are shooting only 28.4 percent (40 of 141) from the perimeter.

Seeing looks go down from Storr (21.4 percent) and Crowl (3-for-5 entering the game) adds another dimension to an offense that is starting to look more and more dangerous, evidenced by them averaging 1.273 points per possession against the seventh-ranked team in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency.

Wisconsin looked in trouble Saturday after Marquette started the second half on a 14-2 run to cut the lead to 48-47. However, the Badgers regrouped and steadily rebuilt their double-digit lead to earn a comfortable victory. It’s something Wisconsin had trouble doing a season ago, and yet the Badgers have done it in consecutive games.

Michigan State got one of its three-pointers to drop with 12:55 remaining, closing what was once a 13-point lead down to three by making seven consecutive shots.

Freshman John Blackwell – who scored 10 points in his first game playing in his native Michigan - hit a cutting Tyler Wahl for an easy dunk at the rim that helped silence the crowd. The next three minutes were far from an offensive clinic from either team, Storr hit a rhythm three-pointer off a Crowl screen and Blackwell hit two free throws after attacking the rim following a two-man action with Wahl.

One of the bigger plays came on the game’s next bucket when Wahl secured an offensive rebound with one hand to reset the shot clock and the offense. Instead of Michigan State cutting the lead back to one possession, Wahl got the ball to Storr, who drained a three-pointer from the top of the key to make it 59-50 with 6:11 remaining. The lead never dipped lower than nine from there, as UW went on a 12-2 run after the Spartans cut the lead to three for the final time.

In the final 12:55, after Walker’s three-pointer, Michigan State went 4 of 16 from the field and 0 of 3 from the perimeter.

In Wisconsin games against major conference opponents (Tennessee, Providence, Virginia, SMU, Marquette, and Michigan State), Chucky Hepburn is shooting 16 of 51 from the floor (31.4 percent). In UW’s losses against the first two opponents named above, Hepburn had only one total assist.

Against the rest, Hepburn has gotten his teammates better involved. Starting with his six assists and zero turnovers against Virginia (on a night where he went 1-for-8), Hepburn has 19 assists to only three turnovers.

Michigan State entered the night seventh nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, but Hepburn dished out a career-high eight assists while only making one turnover in 34 minutes on the court.

On the season, Hepburn has a 2.53 assist-to-turnover ratio (33 assists, 13 turnovers)

“He’s playing at another level, and that’s what you would expect of a kid now in his third year in the program,” Gard said of Hepburn, who finished with five points and five rebounds. “He doesn’t shoot it exceptionally well, but he doesn’t have to when you are surrounded by really good players.”

Gard pointed to the play at the end of the half as a sign of Hepburn’s growth, reading the ball screen and finding Storr open because the Spartans were collapsing in preparation for a post penetration.

“A big part of our improvement is Chucky has taken the responsibility of really being the leader that doesn’t involve scoring all the time,” Gard said. “He has a calming effect. When you have a really good mature point guard, it makes you as a coach be able to relax a little bit more and sleep well at night knowing you can put the ball in a really good player’s hand.”

The Badgers out-rebounded Michigan State, 36-22 (11-5 on the offensive glass). That led to a 19-8 edge in second-chance points. UW outrebounded the Spartans for the first time since a 32-23 edge on March 13, 2015.

The toughest scale was off the charts for Wahl, who grabbed eight rebounds (three offensive) to go along with his eight points. He hit those numbers despite playing only 22 minutes and getting six of those rebounds came after getting elbowed to the face to begin the second half, and dealing with a bloodied nose throughout the remainder of the game.

According to UW Athletics, the plus-14 rebounding margin is the Badgers' largest rebounding margin over the Spartans since at least the 1993-94 season, when Stu Jackson was UW’s head coach and Tom Izzo was still two years away from becoming the head coach.

“You hold them, they don’t score, and then they get 19 points on second-chance points,” Izzo said. “That shouldn’t happen to us, and it’s my fault because I’m getting soft.”

During UW's six-game win streak, UW has out-rebounded opponents, 215-148 (that includes a 77-to-40 edge in offensive reb.).

6 - UW has won 6 straight Big Ten openers and 19 of its last 21 Big Ten openers.

6-3 - The Badgers are 6-3 in road Big Ten openers under Gard with wins at PSU (2x), Iowa (2x), and MSU (2x).

13 – Wisconsin starting center (Crowl) and starting point guard (Hepburn) combined for 13 assists to just two turnovers.

80.0 – Going a perfect 14-for-14 from the free-throw line, the Badgers have shot over 80 percent from the foul line in five consecutive games. UW only had 10 shooting over 80 percent from the line last season.

67.3 - Since 2001-02 when Bo Ryan and Gard arrived in Madison, UW has the most Big Ten wins and best win pct. at 266-129 (.673). Michigan State is the next at .662.

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