Badgers Stifle Waves, 71-55
December 03, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Junior forward Alando Tucker was the Badgers' top scorer for the third time this season, pouring in 16 points in the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team's 71-55 victory over Pepperdine Saturday afternoon at the Kohl Center.
While Tucker notched his fourth game this year with 16 or more points, junior Jason Chappell shot 5-of-10 for a career-high 15 points. Classmate Kammron Taylor added 12 points and five steals for the Badgers (5-1), who gained 28 points off of Pepperdine's 19 turnovers.
The Waves (1-4), who shot just 39.3 percent (22-of-56), got 12 points apiece from Tashaan Forehan-Kelly and Michael Gerrity.
'If you've got a guy like (Gerrity and he shoots just) 4-for-13 ' you've got to give credit to not just the guys who were guarding him,' head coach Bo Ryan said, 'but I thought the (forwards and centers) hedged well.'
Gerrity, who entered the game averaging 17.3 ppg, scored just one point in the first half. In fact, it was the Badgers who had the shooting touch in the opening period.
Chappell, who hit his previous career-high in scoring (11 points) four days ago, surpassed it in the first 15 minutes of the game, putting up 12 points off 5-of-7 shooting as UW took a 27-13 lead.
Brian Butch notched nine points and four rebounds as Wisconsin entered the half ahead 33-23. The Badgers then reeled off the first nine points of the second half, keeping Pepperdine scoreless for five minutes.
However, Forehan-Kelly used five points and an assist to spark a 14-4 run for the Waves, cutting their deficit to 46-37 with 11:48 remaining in the game. But the Badgers answered with nine consecutive points, including back-to-back 3-point baskets from Tucker and Michael Flowers, to push their advantage back into double digits.
From there, UW never saw its cushion fall below 15 points, despite Gerrity tallying nine points in the final 4:15.
The Badgers will play host to UW-Green Bay at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Kohl Center.
Game Notes
Wisconsin improved to 2-2 all-time against Pepperdine, including 2-0 in Madison ' with 15 points, Jason Chappell scored in double figures for the second time in his career ' the Badgers scored more than 70 points for the fifth time this season ' UW improved to 61-3 under head coach Bo Ryan when scoring at least 70 points ' Kammron Taylor's five steals were a career high; he is second on the team with nine this season ' with nine boards, Brian Butch was the Badgers' leading rebounder for the third consecutive contest.
Post-game Quotations
Wisconsin Head Coach Bo Ryan
On Jason Chappell:
'If they're not going to come out and play him, he can knock those shots down. So that stretches the defense, he took advantage of what they were giving him. He was active, he made some good decisions with the ball. So I was happy to see that. But that's what we practice and that's just you wait to see in the game when the light goes on. Sometimes it takes a year, sometimes three, sometimes four but he took advantage of what was given and that's certainly a great sight to see, that's the way he can help the team.
On Chappell progressing over the last couple of games:
'It's always easy to watch and make comments about players from afar because you don't understand the speed of the game, you don 't know what it's like. But Jason is trying to figure out pace, poise, just like a lot of our other bigs and bigger-than-average guys sometimes, because they are still developing, it takes them a little time. And you combine some injuries, they don 't get the practice time. In his fourth year, how many days on a basketball court has he been able to work on his game and be able to do it with the speed of the game like it is out here. He hasn't had that many opportunities.'
On defending Pepperdine's Michael Gerrity:
'He got a few there in the last couple of minutes. If you 've got a guy like him who's 4-for-13 and five turnovers, you've got to give credit to not just the guys who were guarding him, but I thought the bigs hedged well, some pretty decent help from the cover on the bigs. They've got some other guys, too, that can shoot it so we couldn't sag off and do anything that way. Those last three guys, they were 1-, 4-for-6, the other 3-for-5 and the other 2-for-4, that's 9-for-15 with those three guys off the bench. They were a little more mobile, and hit some shots, especially when one of their better bigs went down. They picked each other up very well, too, at the end because it could have gone the other way.
Pepperdine Head Coach Paul Westphal
On his team's offense:
'Mike (Gerrity) is a very talented kid, he's still a freshman and he's coming up against teams that are stacked to stop him, and we 've got to give him a little bit better help. I think we've got to set some better screens, I think we've got to space the floor better, and obviously we 've got to knock down some shots. The first half, we shot a very poor percentage and I give Wisconsin a lot of credit for that, but there's not ever going to be room for a point guard to penetrate if you can't space the floor and have somebody knocking down shots.'
On Wisconsin's depth:
'We knew (Wisconsin) had good players, and we knew they could hurt you from a lot of different places. Obviously we've been trying to make everybody earn their points, and I thought the thing that hurt us most, though, was their second shots and our turnovers leading to their easy baskets. I thought that at half-court, for us being a young team, I was real happy with our defense.'
On the difference of this Wisconsin team compared to last season:
'It's hard for me to really tell because our team is so different. I think that this (Wisconsin) team certainly has a lot of balance. We didn 't know that (Jason) Chappell could shoot the ball as well as he did. Our strategy is kind of to have our center and try to clog the middle and keep (Alando) Tucker and (Kammron) Taylor from hurting us inside, and if we gave up anything we gave up shots to (Chappell), and he started dropping them on our heads all over the place. You know, you take one thing away and you give something else. They seem to be a real good shooting team with also good slashers. I think the biggest difference from last year is they weren 't hitting shots like they did tonight.'
