IOWA (7-2) VS. WISCONSIN (7-2)
DATE: December 11, 2022
TIME: 5:30 p.m. CT
LOCATION: Carver Hawkeye Arena
TV: BTN
RADIO: Learfield Sports
STREAMING: Fox Sports Live
LINE: Iowa -4.5
KENPOM: Iowa -6 (Iowa 72% win probability)
For the first time since December 2018, we get a proper men's basketball HATE WEEK: Iowa, fresh off a blowout win over Iowa State, gets the loathsome Wisconsin Badgers in Carver Hawkeye Arena Sunday evening. Tipoff is set for 5:30 God's time.
On the one hand, this Badgers team looks a lot like most Badgers teams. They have essentially held serve through the first nine games of the year; they suffered a bad home loss against Wake Forest in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, made up for it with an upset win against Maryland earlier this week, and otherwise have lost who they probably should have lost to (Kansas, in the Bahamas, in overtime) and beaten who they should beat (Marquette, USC, Stanford, Dayton). The margins of victory haven't been overwhelming, but wins are wins.
On the other hand, this is a far cry from the efficiency bombs of the great Badger squads of the last two decades. Wisconsin is currently 96th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency; if that holds for the rest of the season, it would be the least-efficient Wisconsin offense of the Kenpom era (which started in 2001-02). Even Greg Gard's first team, a near-complete rebuild, was better than this.
The culprit is similarly unusual for anyone accustomed to the Badgers: Two-point shooting. Wisconsin is shooting just 42.4% on two-point attempts. The only major-conference team making a lower percentage of two-point shots is Louisville, and Louisville is 0-9. Two players, senior forward Tyler Wahl (6'9", 225) and sophomore point guard Chucky Hepburn (6'2", 205), have taken more two-point attempts than the entire rest of the roster combined, and neither is exactly lighting it up. Throw in the typical Wisconsin aversion to offensive rebounding -- after dabbling with the concept of crashing the boards his first few years, Gard has returned to his predecessor's philosophy of stopping all transition instead -- and you get a whole bunch of empty possessions.
Wisconsin has evened things out by becoming more dependent on the three-point shot. Roughly 42% of Wisconsin's shot attempts have been from three, and their 37% three-point percentage makes the math easy. They have plenty of perimeter weapons, too. Hepburn is shooting 48% from three (compared to just 31% from inside the arc). Starting off-guard Max Klesmit (6'3", 200), a transfer from Wofford, is making 39% of his three-point attempts. And reserve freshman guard Connor Essegian (6'4", 185) is an even better 49% from three. The biggest issue is that the Badgers frontcourt -- Wahl, seven-footer Steven Crowl (7'0", 245) and wing Jordan Davis (6'4", 200) -- also take a ton of threes and aren't good at them; the Wisconsin starting frontcourt is 18/74 from three, a 24% make rate on eight combined attempts per game.
Defensively, Wisconsin is solid across the board and not spectacular at any one thing. They don't block many shots, but contest well enough to force opponents into a 46% effective field goal rate and just 29% from three. The Badgers rebound three out of every four opponent misses, and generate a fair number of turnovers. Again, this isn't a spectacular defensive team, but they're better than average across the board.
Wisconsin lost a lot at the end of last season: Johnny Davis, who torched Iowa in their one meeting last year, left early for the NBA, and Brad Davison finally graduated. There really haven't been any replacements for their production yet. It looked like Wahl was positioning himself as the Next Wisconsin Unstoppable Power Forward when he put the team on his back against Kansas, but his subsequent play has called that into question. No, the Badgers run on Hepburn, a score-first, score-second, distribute-optional point guard (the center, Crowl, actually leads the team in assists with 3.0 per game).
Yes, Iowa will again be without Kris Murray. But stopping Hepburn -- or at least funneling him into the lane where he struggles to score -- seems like a job tailor-made for Tony Perkins. If Perkins is up to that task, and Rebraca can handle Wahl, I like Iowa's chances to slow Wisconsin's offense to a trickle. From there, Iowa's typical white-hot shooting at home, if it materializes, should be enough.
