Wisconsin Basketball: Brad Davison Leads Offensive Surge against UNC

Ideally, any team wants to enter the NCAA Tournament riding a wave of momentum from the regular season and conference tournament. However, that wasn’t the case for the Wisconsin basketball team. They entered Friday night’s first-round matchup with North Carolina having lost four of their last five games and nine of their last 14.

Far too often this season, putting up points on the offensive end has been a grueling task for this Badgers team. In fact, their 69.6 points per game ranked 193rd in the country.

However, against an athletic and physical Tarheels squad that should have given Wisconsin trouble, we saw what may have been the Badgers’ most complete performance of the season. They out-rebounded North Carolina, had five steals, eight blocks, and forced 10 turnovers on the defensive end.

Meanwhile, on offense, this looked like a completely different Wisconsin basketball team. The Badgers shot nearly 51 percent from the field and 48 percent from deep. On top of that, they were able to get to the line more often than North Carolina and hit 83.3 percent of their free-throw attempts.

This offensive surge was led by senior Brad Davison, who, for the most part, this season as struggled offensively. While this season we still saw the high-effort leader that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing over the years, Davison would go on long stretches without scoring and was shooting less than 33 percent from the floor and 37 percent from 3.

But you never would have known that watching Friday’s game. Davison was nearly unstoppable, shooting 10-15 overall and 5-7 from 3, with a few of those makes coming from several feet behind the line, and he was able to bail Wisconsin out of some jams late in the shot clock as well. When it was all said and done, Davison tallied 29 points–tying Frank Kaminsky for the second-most points by a Badger in the NCAA Tournament.

While Davison and his 3-point ball may have stolen the show, it was another good night for D’Mitrik Trice as well. In the final 10 minutes or so of the game when North Carolina really ratcheted up the pressure, he handled it extremely well, breaking free or finding his teammates open on outlet passes, and finished the game with only two turnovers.

In addition to Davison’s 29, Trice put up 21 of his own on 8-15 shooting overall, including three 3-pointers. He was also 2-2 at the line.

Of Wisconsin’s 85 points — which is the most that Wisconsin has scored in regulation since December 25th against Michigan State — Davison and Trice accounted for 50 of them in what ended up being a 23 point victory over the Tarheels, who were previously 29-0 in first-round NCAA games under Roy Williams.

"“They (Davison and Trice) were both really determined tonight,” said Greg Gard via Badger247. “You could tell just in their preparation and the look in their eyes tonight that they were going to make sure that we were going to take care of this thing once we got that lead.”"

With this win, the Badgers move on to the round of 32 and will face No. 1 seed Baylor. If Wisconsin is going to pull off the upset, they’re going to need Davison and Trice to stay hot on the offensive end, and they’ll need another all-around stellar performance. But until then, let’s enjoy this win.