Wisconsin basketball’s season stuck in a freefall

Steven Crowl had the ball near the top of the key and spotted an open Tyler Wahl cutting to the rim. It would have been an easy basket — those are rare these days for UW — but Wahl dropped the pass from Crowl, and the possession ended moments later with a Connor Essegian turnover.

Or maybe the snapshot of sloppiness should be what happened on UW’s next trip down the floor, when Chucky Hepburn and Max Klesmit arrived at the same spot following a sloppy pass from Jordan Davis. The ball got bobbled — two players unsure which one should grab it — and it went out of bounds for another giveaway.

Those are examples from only one end of the floor. The Badgers had moments of dysfunction on defense as well during a 61-51 loss to Illinois that completed an empty week for UW.

How a second-half lead turned into a loss for Wisconsin men’s basketball

Three Quad 1 opportunities in a span of six days, three defeats. And if you weren’t already concerned that Greg Gard’s team might be watching the NCAA Tournament from its couches in March, you should be now.

What a plunge it’s been for the Badgers (12-8, 4-6 Big Ten): They were ranked No. 14 in the country three weeks ago and had won 11 of their first 13 games of the season, including all three in conference play. Three weeks seems like three months following a stretch of six defeats in seven games.

How does UW recover from this tailspin? Problem is, no obvious solutions immediately come to mind.

This is a team that has to work so hard to score, which makes it even more frustrating when a golden opportunity presents itself and the Badgers fail to capitalize. Case in point: Wahl was isolated in the post on UW’s opening possession of the game, dribbled his way to point-blank range and … missed the bunny.

It’s not just Wahl, of course. The Badgers were 8 of 16 on shots at the rim, precious chances wasted. They’ve missed too many free throws this season, too, but more troubling than that is the fact they’re not getting to the line enough. UW managed only seven attempts against the Fighting Illini and, not to pick on one player, but the 7-foot Crowl didn’t draw a single foul in 28 minutes on the court.

Hepburn came to life after halftime, scoring all of his team-high 15 points after the break, but the sophomore point guard was missing in action during an opening 20 minutes that finished with UW stuck at 16 on the scoreboard. The Badgers had separate droughts of seven and eight consecutive empty possessions en route to shooting 18.2% from the field.

Defense kept the Badgers in the game in the first half, but Illinois poked holes in it after halftime. The Illini (15-6, 6-4) scored 12 points in their opening seven possessions of the second half and put the game away by scoring on 10 consecutive possessions later in the half.

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UW had rallied back from one double-digit deficit to take the lead, but there was no way it was overcoming another one after Illinois dropped the hammer with a 19-2 blitz.

“We relied on our defense in the first half and that usually keeps us in the game,” Wahl said. “That’s how Wisconsin has always played. When the ball’s not going in, we’ve got to rely on our defense. And in that second half, we just kind of went away from that. We saw the ball go in the few times, and we just quit playing defense.”

UW finally had a healthy starting lineup for the first time since playing Minnesota on Jan. 3 — Klesmit returned after missing two games with a concussion — and it still found ways to not be at full strength. Wahl spent more time on the bench than on the court due to foul trouble, while Crowl sat for a key stretch in the second half after picking up his fourth foul.

“In these type of games, against really good teams, you can’t have your horses in foul trouble,” Gard said.

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But the last two weeks have shown the Badgers’ problems run deeper than that.

Wahl, Crowl, Hepburn, Klesmit and Essegian are decent players, but none are stars. There’s been nobody to put on his cape and save the day for the Badgers, the way Johnny Davis did time and again last season. The supporting cast around those aforementioned five players offers little in the way of tangible production.

That’s the sad reality for a team that hasn’t done much to enhance its resume since winning overtime games at Marquette and Iowa over the span of nine days in December. A flawed roster has been exposed since the calendar flipped to 2023 and, as a result, a smooth ride has taken a hard turn toward the ditch.