Northwestern gave it all they had, but came up short on Tuesday night, falling to No. 8 Wisconsin, 82-76.
As a result, the Wildcats failed in their bid to make history. Coming off of a win over No. 10 Michigan State on Saturday, they were aiming to knock off two Top 10 teams in a season, let alone a week, for the first time ever. Instead, they dropped their fifth game in seven Big Ten starts.
It was a tightly-contested game in front of a raucous Welsh-Ryan Arena crowd, which featured students for the first time this season in Big Ten play. The largest margin was 10 points, and even that was short lived. Shots were falling all night, with both teams shooting over 45% from the field.
Chase Audige and Johnny Davis went toe-to-toe as each team's leading scorer. Davis led all scorers with 27 for the Badgers, while Audige scored 23 to lead the hosts.
All of Wisconsin's starters were in double figures: Tyler Wahl and Chucky Hepburn each scored 14, Brad Davison scored 13 and Steven Crowl added 10.
For Northwestern, Boo Buie scored 19 and Pete Nance 10, after missing Saturday's game with an ankle injury. Ryan Young added 13 off the bench.
The Wildcats are now 0-4 at home in Big Ten play this season.
Here are our takeaways from a loss that drops Northwestern to 9-7 and 2-5 in the Big Ten:
Free throws tell the story: Northwestern head coach Chris Collins danced around blaming the officials for the wide discrepancy, but the bottom line is Wisconsin took 26 free throws to Northwestern's eight. This is a concerning trend that has carried over from last season.
The Wildcats have made more field goals than their opponent in every Big Ten game they've played this year, yet they find themselves at 2-5. There were certainly missed calls that could have sent Northwestern to the line against Wisconsin, but Northwestern doesn't put the officials in positions to make calls as often as their opponents.
On top of that, Northwestern was dreadful when they did get to the line. Shooting 37.5% (3 of 8) is not going to get the job done. Young was the main culprit, with four of the five Wildcat misses from the charity stripe.
Davis kills Cats: Johnny Davis turned in a player-of-the-year worthy performance against Northwestern. After getting off to a slow start, he scored a game-high 27 and added eight rebounds and three steals.
He came up big whenever Wisconsin needed him. Northwestern mostly used Audige and Julian Roper II to guard Davis, but the Badgers were able to get their star player going early and often. He drained 4-of-4 three-pointers, including one he banked in after absorbing contact.
BTN's Andy Katz said that Davis is the leading candidate for national player of the year, and he played like one against the Wildcats.
Badgers shoot the lights out, Cats not so much: Wisconsin's night from beyond the arc could probably be best represented by Hepburn hitting a half-court heave off the backboard as the game went into halftime.
It seemed that everything the Badgers threw towards the rim found the bottom of the net. Wisconsin shot 9-of-17 (52.9%) from beyond the arc, despite only shooting 30.5% coming into the game.
Meanwhile, Northwestern struggled from deep, especially in the first half, when they were 3-of-11. The second half was better and Northwestern finished the game 7-of-20 (35%) from three. That's actually right around their season average, but it was no match for Wisconsin's torrid shooting.
Roper II makes his mark: When the game was on the line, Collins turned to one of his youngest players. Roper II played 18 of his career-high 27 minutes in the second half as he replaced Ty Berry in the rotation.
Roper II, who finished with seven points and five rebounds, has been confident since he first stepped on the court and brought a toughness that Northwestern really needed against a physical Wisconsin team. He played solid defense and had a steal, a block and an assist.
