Badgers clamp down in second half, throttle Hoosiers

Football is the sport in which commentators and fans typically give a lot of weight to the halftime adjustments of coaching staffs. Thursday night in Bloomington, Ind., Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan showed that basketball bosses can also carry a lot of influence during intermission. A fundamental defensive adjustment enabled the Badgers to smother Indiana in the second half, and coast to a 68-51 win that has UW sitting at 8-6 in the Big Ten.
 
Before examining how Wisconsin surged after halftime, one must first explain why the Badgers were on their heels. In the first half of play, Indiana coach Tom Crean found the right formula in his halfcourt sets. The Hoosiers, deploying their personnel wisely and receiving great spacing on the floor, were able to spread out the Badgers' defense and get guard Verdell Jones III in a one-on-one matchup against a smaller Wisconsin defender. Jones was consistently able to break down the Badgers with dribble penetration, and get to the middle of the lane at will for unchallenged shots.

Given this weakness in Wisconsin's defense, the homestanding Hoosiers--playing before another loud and proud crowd at Assembly Hall--were able to shoot 50 percent (12-of-24) in the first half and go to the locker room trailing by a single point, 31-30. With another solid half at the offensive end, the Hoosiers would have been able to deal a crippling blow to a UW team that entered this game with a four-game winning streak and renewed hopes for an NCAA Tournament berth. Bo Ryan and his staff needed to contain Indiana's dribble penetration if the visitors were to avoid a damaging upset.
 
Evidently, the Badger braintrust found the right answers at the break.
 
Early in the second half, everyone in the arena could see how Wisconsin changed its defensive looks. Ryan had his defense sag more into the paint, and use different angles on Indiana's low-post players so that the middle of the lane, and not the blocks, would be occupied. When Jones and fellow IU guard Devan Dumes (returning from a Crean-imposed suspension) took the ball hard to the basket, they no longer had access to the middle of the lane. Badger defenders, instead of drifting to the edges of the paint, maintained a solid wall of resistance five feet in front of the basket, the very area Indiana's backcourt so routinely found (and exploited) in the first half.

The results of this new defensive approach were easy to identify: Indiana scored just 12 points in the first 16 minutes of the second half, and wound up hitting just 5 field goals after making 12 in the first 20 minutes of play. IU's 5-of-18 second half shooting stood at just under 30 percent, a far cry from the 50-percent mark that defined the Hoosiers' sizzling first half.
 
Yes, veterans Trevon Hughes and Joe Krabbenhoft combined for 39 points on notably accurate 14-of-25 shooting for the Badgers, but those two stalwarts made their presence felt (as did their teammates) primarily at the defensive end of the floor in the second half of play. By locking down on the amped-up Hoosiers, Wisconsin quieted down a crowd intent on willing its hardwood heroes to a second Big Ten victory.
 
Halftime adjustments might normally receive attention in Madison when Bret Bielema is the center of attention. But on a February evening in Hoosier Country, it was Bo Ryan who created a bit of X-and-O magic that has the Badgers increasingly confident about their NCAA chances.

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