SENDING
A MESSAGE
With a gritty win over Indiana, the Badgers moved to the top
of the Big Ten and made a statement — loud and clear —
that reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated
BY MIKE LUCAS • UWBADGERS.COM
S
hooting free throws into the Indiana
band and student section ― oblivious to the din and bobbing Fatheads
― Wisconsin's Mike Bruesewitz was
thinking, "This is what I live for.''
You could see his lips moving while he was
measuring each attempt from the line.
"I was talking to myself,'' he acknowledged.
This was Bruesewitz motivating Bruesewitz.
This was Bruesewitz eyeing the rim and reminding himself, "You've been in the gym, you've
knocked down these shots a 1,000 times.''
This was Bruesewitz taking a deep breath and
reminding himself, "These are the type of moments that you've worked so hard for.''
This was Bruesewitz grinning and reiterating,
"This is what you live for.''
The later it got in the game, the louder it got,
the more he got into it.
"I love it when you come into a hostile place like
this and you fight hard,'' Bruesewitz said. "This
was all about grit, toughness ― whatever you
want to call it ― this was what it was all about.''
Wisconsin's 64-59 win Tuesday night over No.
2 Indiana ― the 11th-straight in the series and an
unprecedented fifth in a row at Assembly Hall ―
had Tom Crean talking to himself afterward.
As the Hoosiers head coach, he is 0-9 vs. Bo
Ryan and the Badgers.
"We've got a bunch of guys in the locker room
who don't give up and who don't quit,'' said Bruesewitz, a senior leader and emotional catalyst. "A
lot of people counted us out earlier in the year.
A lot of people said that we were going to get
smacked by 30 points here.
"My thought process was, 'We've got nothing to
lose. We've just got to hoop and have fun.' An environment like this can swallow you up real quick
unless you take the right attitude. Everybody had
it from the jump ― everybody had the attitude ―
that was the biggest thing about the win.''
There were many big sequences during the
game, none bigger, perhaps, nor more telling,
than three consecutive Wisconsin possessions
with less than five minutes remaining.
After taking a 10-point lead, 51-41, the Bad-
