BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Before breaking the Wisconsin huddle,
Brad Davison delivered a purposeful message that his teammates carried back on the court with them when play resumed with 12.4 seconds remaining and Maryland holding a 54-53 lead at the Kohl Center Tuesday night.
"I told the guys, 'No matter who's getting this shot, it's going in. We've got to believe that, and if we do believe that, we'll make it happen,'" Davison said confidently. "I'm very thankful that I had the open look. But we always talk about, 'It's not my shot, but our shot.'"
In this specific case, Davison needed some help to get that wide open in the right corner and he got that assistance from a double screen — set by Brevin Pritzl at the elbow and Nate Reuvers on the wing — which got him some "daylight" or separation from Maryland's best defender, Darryl Morsell.
"Great play call by Coach (Greg) Gard," said Davison, who had made only three of his previous 14 attempts from the 3-point line over the last four games, including one of his first four against the Terps. "It's a play we've run quite a few times this year and I knew I had a good look at the rim.
"Those are shots that we drill. Whether it's in practice or if I'm in here (the Kohl Center) during late nights or early mornings. Those are the kind of shots that you dream about and you think about. So, to have that opportunity, I was very grateful to see the ball drop."
After Davison knocked down the triple to push the Badgers into a 56-54 lead, Maryland called a timeout with 9.1 seconds left. And there was little doubt that Terps coach Mark Turgeon was going to keep the ball in the hands of his star point guard Anthony Cowan.
Four years ago, it was Melo Trimble, not Cowan, who was in that position and Trimble drilled a deep three from the top of the key over Zak Showalter for a 63-60 win in Madison. Last season, it was Cowan who hit a 3-pointer from almost the same spot over D'Mitrik Trice with 44 seconds remaining.
That led to a 64-60 win for the Terps on their home floor.
On Tuesday, that same matchup materialized with Trice on Cowan whose late-game heroics in early December — a clutch 3-pointer with 29.8 seconds left followed by a steal and game-winning free throw — rallied Maryland past Illinois, 59-58, in its Big Ten opener.
"Cowan was kind of feeling it, so I held my breath on that one," Davison admitted. "Meech (Trice) played really good defense on Cowan. We wanted to force him to go right to his pull-up and not left, and he (Trice) did a really good job sitting on it and make it difficult for Cowan.
"It was a long miss, and they had a desperation shot from the corner that from my angle looked really good, so I'm glad it came up short ... I really held my breath on that second one because that was the guy (Eric Ayala) that I was supposed to box out."
Instead, the Badgers escaped with a 56-54 victory that Davison called "really gritty and not very pretty at times." It was his first game-winning shot since 2016 and his senior year at Maple Grove High School where he beat DeLaSalle, 67-64, on a 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds on the clock.
Gard gushed, "The kid's a winner. He just makes winning plays."
In this case, one winning play led to another.
Maryland had the ball and a one-point lead with 13.6 seconds to play.
"We knew that we had the possession (arrow), so we weren't going to foul right away," explained Davison, breaking down the sequence. "We wanted to deny the inbounds pass and if they got it in, we were going to try to get a tie-up to get the possession back."
Morsell was the inbounder under Wisconsin's basket.
"They did a little crisscross play where I got switched on to Cowan," Davison said of the defensive coverage, "and I knew that they were going to try to get the ball to him, so I tried to play a little bit behind him to bait (Morsell) to throw it to him.
"But I gave Cowan a little too much room, so I couldn't grab the ball. But I was able to get a hand on it. Then I realized I got too much of my hand on it and it was going to go out of bounds. My only choice was to find a Maryland guy to hit it off to make sure we got that possession back.
"Thankfully, and luckily, Morsell was right there. I tried to hit it off his shin and got lucky."
The ball deflected off Morsell who was still standing out of bounds.
Freshman Tyler Wahl was also a factor by instinctively dropping off Morsell on the inbounds pass and sandwiching Cowan with Davison. "It was a heads-up play by Tyler to be in the right spot," Davison said. "He always tends to be in the right spot. That's why we love having him on the team."
On the pressure defense that the Badgers threw at the Terps, Davison said, "It was a great decision by coach and that's how we wanted to guard it — to try and deny the inbounds pass and make a play. That's what it comes down to. The players have got to make plays. That's what we try to do."
The players have to be resilient, too. With 13 seconds remaining, the Badgers were guilty of a shot-clock violation which drew a predictably negative response from the home crowd. Not that anybody on the floor was listening. They weren't. Nor were they panicking. They didn't.
"I knew there was more time left and if we wanted to win the game, we had to let that go," Davison said. "They took away our first three options and I got the ball back and there was three seconds to go and I didn't have much of an opportunity to make a play.
"That was on us. But Maryland played really good defense on that possession to take away those first couple of options. That's basketball. You can't hang your head. You've got to have the next-play mentality because you never know what plays are going to lead you to victory in the end."
Like he conceded, it was more gritty than pretty at times.
Meanwhile, the tag team of 6-foot-11 Nate Reuvers and 6-10 Micah Potter was pretty efficient. Potter played 13 minutes and had 14 points (6-of-7), nine in the first half. Reuvers played 27 minutes and had 17 points (7-of-15), eight in the second half to go along with some timely low-post defense.
"They're probably the best (center) tandem in the Big Ten," Davison said. "With their ability to score inside and their ability to stretch the floor, it's really a tough challenge to guard them. They do a lot of great things and they don't have to play the whole game, so they're fresh when they get in there.
"I don't think people realize how much of an impact that has, being fresh on the basketball court. So, they were huge all night. Micah really carried us in that first half and Nate really carried us in that second half — they were hitting big 3's and getting inside. We're fortunate to have them on our side."
The same could be said of Davison, and Reuvers did, "He's a playmaker making plays."
