Marquette @ Wisconsin Preview

By Mike Wynn Sports

Marquette travels to the Kohl Center in Madison to battle the Badgers of Wisconsin in what has become a fairly intense rivalry game. Wisconsin suffered their second loss of the season Wednesday night when they were upset in overtime at Wisconsin-Green Bay. The Badgers now stand at 6-2 on the season with a couple of marquee wins over Duke & Maryland. Marquette Golden Eagles are 7-2 on the season and they’re coming off a convincing 20 point win over in city rival Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Tuesday. Marquette halted a two game slide with the win Tuesday and they’ll be looking for their third straight win in this series. So let’s take a look at both these teams Saturday.

Marquette Golden Eagles head coach Buzz Williams is in his second year as the head man, and certainly doing a fine job. Last year the Eagles finished 25-10 and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament, but they have big shoes to fill this season with the departure of stars McNeal, James and Matthews. Thus far Marquette has had players step offensively led by senior forward Lazar Hayward who is averaging 18.6 points per game. Guards Butler and Johnson-Odom are scoring 16.4 and 12.2 points per game respectively and knocking down three point shots at a 58.3% clip. Marquette allowing just 60.2 points per game this season and have only allowed more than 70 points once this year playing good defense that has held opponents to 39.7% shooting from the field.
Wisconsin is another team that prides itself on the defensive side of the ball as Bo Ryan’s Badgers are allowing 61.9 points per game and allowing 41.5% shooting from the floor. Badgers gave up 70 points for the first time this season in the loss at UW-GB Wednesday, as they ran into a hungry Phoenix squad eager to prove themselves. Wisconsin squad averages 71.6 points per game and they’re led by the senior backcourt of Hughes and Bohannon. Trevon Hughes leads the team with 18 points per contest while Jason Bohannon chips in with 10.3 per contest. Badgers 6-10 forward Jon Leuer is the main weapon in the post with 15.4 points per game but the big man is also capable of hitting the three point shot when he’s on. Badgers have the advantage of playing this one at home where they’ve been extremely tough under Bo Ryan but Marquette did win here in 2007.
Since this rivalry started up in 2004 Marquette has won 3 of the 5 meetings including the last 2 but they’ve fairly tight ball games with the last 3 decided by 5 points or less. Marquette has an athletic squad and they’re the kind of team that can give Wisconsin troubles. Wisconsin tends to go as their ability to shoot the three ball goes and Marquette’s athleticism will give Wisconsin’s big men troubles in the paint. You won’t get a lot of points in this one but they’re worth taking.