CHICAGO (AP) — Trailing by 15 points in the second half, No. 23 Wisconsin looked as if it was ready to get knocked out of the Big Ten Tournament by No. 9 Illinois on Friday.
Then again, comebacks are kind of the Badgers’ thing. And they pulled off another big one in the conference quarterfinals.
Nick Boyd scored a career-high 38 points, John Blackwell added 31 and Wisconsin rallied to beat Illinois 91-88 in overtime.
“Thankfully it’s a 40-minute game, so we have more time,” coach Greg Gard said. “I think a lot of it ties into what I’ve talked about here in terms of how our resilience and toughness and perseverance have grown. Our ability to turn the page within possessions, meaning something doesn’t go well, we don’t dwell on it. I’ve said all along they turn the page better than their head coach does at times. That happens from possession to possession, half to half, game to game.”
Six times this season, the Badgers have rallied to win after falling behind by 10 or more points. They did it at Michigan, against Ohio State and twice against both Minnesota and Illinois. Both games against the Illini went to overtime.
Last month, they came back from 12 down in the final eight-plus minutes of regulation for a 92-90 win at Illinois. On Friday, they trailed by 15 in both halves, only to come out on top in the end.
They’ll face No. 3 Michigan, which held off Ohio State, in the semifinals on Saturday. But the way this game was going, it didn’t look like they would be playing again so soon.
“Just the way we’re built,” Boyd said. “We could be down 20 and we can still come back. It’s the way we’re built, how we can shoot and how spread the floor is and just our tempo.”
Boyd and Blackwell became the first duo to score 30 or more while shooting at least 50% in a major conference tournament over the past 30 seasons, according to OptaSTATS.
Even so, things weren’t looking good for Wisconsin, trailing 60-45 midway through the second half. But rather than flinch, they got back into the game.
They forced overtime after a back-and-forth final few minutes of regulation. They led by seven with 14 seconds to go in overtime and hung on when Keaton Wagler’s 3 for Illinois at the buzzer hit the rim.
“It’s been a joy to watch them come together, the chemistry, the connectivity,” Gard said. “It just took us time because it’s a relatively new group. Seven of the top eight or nine are new to our program.” ___
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