Wisconsin Basketball: 3 Reasons for their Turnaround

It was a rough first month and a half of the season for the Wisconsin Basketball team but as of late they have turned things around. And here are 3 big reasons why.

Through the first 10 games of the season for the Wisconsin Basketball team, it was a bit of a roller coaster ride, to say the least. They were 5-5, hadn’t won a game away from the Kohl Center, at one point they won four games in a row, then lost three games in a row, and had some nice scoring nights with four games over 77, but also three games where they scored less than 55.

It was difficult to get a beat on this Badgers team, but overall it looked like they were destined to miss the Big Dance for the second time in three seasons, especially with a grueling Big Ten schedule ahead.

However, to their credit, they’ve been able to turn things around over the last month of play. Since December 21st, they’re 3-1 on the road, they have three top-25 victories, and their 5-3 record in the conference is tied for the fourth best overall.

So what has been the big change for this team? Well, naturally there are a number of reasons for their recent success, but these three in particular, are big reasons why the Badgers have been able to save their season.

Micah Potter

We certainly cannot overlook the important role that Micah Potter has had in the turnaround of this Wisconsin Basketball team since he made his debut against Milwaukee. During his nine games, Potter has averaged over 15 minutes per game with 9.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and nearly one block per game. He’s also been incredibly efficient shooting 53.7 percent overall, and this includes 52.9 percent from 3.

Prior to Potter’s arrival, the Badgers really struggled to find any consistent scoring off of their bench, and truthfully outside of his contributions it is still an issue, but he’s absolutely given them a boost in that department. He’s also added more size to this team, which is something that was lacking, especially when Nate Reuvers wasn’t on the floor.

While without Potter Wisconsin may have still found some success here and there, I’m confident in saying that they wouldn’t be in their current position without his contributions on both ends of the floor.

Opponents’ scoring is down

For a Wisconsin Basketball team that is limited offensively, playing solid defense and keeping games low scoring is in their best interest and they’ve been much more stingy as of late. Through the first 10 games, opponents were averaging 63.7 points per game on 43 percent shooting with 55.6 attempts per game, and hitting 35 percent of their shots from deep.

However since then, the Badgers have tightened things up defensively and made scoring much more difficult for their opponent. During this span, Wisconsin opponents are averaging 57.2 points per game, while hitting 39.4 percent of their shots on 53.3 attempts, including just 31.9 percent from 3.

It takes a total team effort on the defensive end to see this kind of improvement, especially in Big Ten Conference play.

Getting hot from 3

As I mentioned previously, this is a limited team offensively that doesn’t really have many reliable scoring options and although they’re still streaky overall, during this nine game stretch the Badgers have had some hot games from 3.

In their last nine games, they are hitting 37.3 percent of their 3 point attempts which is up over 6 percent from the first 10 games of the season. This includes four games over this nine game span where they’ve made more than 41 percent of their shots from deep, including a lights-out performance against Nebraska where they went 18 of 34.

However, while the highs are high, the lows are low as they also have three games where they’ve hit less than 28 percent of those shots. At this point, this just might be who this team is but hopefully, they’ll have more nights when they are on which has been the case over the last month.