46
"We came out of that timeout and I thought,
'Hey, now is the time for me to make a shot to get
us going ― to get us fired up ― to get the crowd
involved."'
Dekker drained back-to-back 3-pointers, one
from the left wing and the other from the right.
After a Frank Kaminsky steal, Traevon Jackson
pushed the ball to set up Dekker's second triple.
"When we started pushing the ball more, we got
some easy shots in transition," Jackson said. "Even
when we were down 16-4, we knew we could
come back. We just needed to keep grinding.
"We started getting the ball in the post and
kicked it out from there instead of swinging the
ball on the outside ― just catching and shooting. We attacked their gaps and that opened it up
more."
There was definitely an ebb and flow to the
game's tempo in the second half.
"It was up-and-down for a while," Dekker said,
"and then it just got into a slow, methodical pace,
because of A) turnovers which we have to correct
and B) fouls.
"They slowed us down, we slowed them down.
A sign of a good team is that you can react to any
situation and I think that's what we did well."
Foul trouble put Kaminsky in a non-productive
situation ― on the bench. He only played five minutes in the first half. But freshman Nigel Hayes
filled the void offensively by scoring six points.
"It's frustrating," Kaminsky said. "They told me
at halftime, 'Come out there ready.' With the ball
screens, and the way they were playing them,
they were laying off a little bit, so it was open."
And he didn't hesitate to take the 3-point
shots; the first came 37 seconds into the second
half and gave the Badgers a 32-28 lead; the second came at the 4:01 mark and extended the lead
to six points.
"That place went nuts," Dekker said. "That gave
us a huge boost."
The Kohl Center rocked when Jackson made
a jumper over 6-foot-6 Jacob Kurtz, who closed
out on the shooter to no avail. The basket came
with 9.8 seconds left and pushed UW into a 5853 lead.
"That's one of the more mentally strong men
I've ever been around," Dekker said of Jackson.
"He wants the ball in the spotlight, in crunch
//
VARSITY November 14, 2013
