50 // VARSITY March 27, 2014
INSIDE
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Triumphant turnaround:
UW advances on late rally
Resilient effort pushes Badgers into Sweet 16
BY MIKE LUCAS @LUCASATLARGE
S
ome things may be best
left unsaid. Except when
you're fighting for your
competitive life in the NCAA
tournament, and you're trail-
ing by 12 points to a front-
running Oregon bunch that
was getting more and more
confident with each made shot
and free throw.
So what was said at halftime
Saturday night in the Wiscon-
sin locker room at the BMO
Harris Bradley Center? How
was it said? And who said it?
Some may have had more to
say than others. But after the
Badgers rallied for a dramatic
85-77 victory, it goes without
saying that everybody got the
message.
"Coach Ryan obviously had
a few words to say to get us
going," Josh Gasser said.
Ryan was not the only one
who spoke up.
"We're not in there (the
locker room) for the whole
halftime," Gard said. "We meet as coaches
and then we come in with about 10 min-
utes to go and we talk to them for about
six or seven minutes.
"Give credit to our guys. Obviously our
upperclassmen got the message across
on what we needed to do and how they
needed to play better when we were out
of the room."
Gasser didn't want to take too much
credit for what was said at halftime. "We
were kind of getting into each other ― as
far as the players," he volunteered.
When reserve Duje Dukan scored off
an inbounds play on Wisconsin's final
possession of the first half, it not only
snapped a 9-0 Oregon run, it gave the
Badgers something to build on.
"We knew that we could play better,"
said assistant coach Gary Close. "The
good news is that we weren't way down
and we could have been.
"We're down 12 and we know there's
going to be a lot of possessions with the
way they play so we're going to have an
opportunity to catch up."
It was just a matter of shoring up a few
things at both ends of the floor and get-
ting the Bradley Center crowd back into
the game. It didn't take long, either.
On the first possession, Dekker shot
an airball from the left wing but Jackson
grabbed the weakside rebound, scored
on the put-back and drew a foul. He set
the tempo with his 3-point play.
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SCHEDULE (28-7)
NCAA 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS
March 20 vs. (15) American W, 75-35
March 22 vs. (7) Oregon W, 85-77
NCAA WEST REGIONAL
Thursday vs. (6) Baylor 6:47 p.m.
