Wisconsin Badgers beat Manhattan College Jaspers in Old Spice Classic
The University of Wisconsin defeated Manhattan College 50-35 in the first round of the Old Spice Classic in Florida on Thursday 25 November.
Big man Jon Leuer powered his way to 16 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Badgers to their third win of the season. Josh Gasser chipped in 12 points for Wisconsin, which bounced back after absorbing a
65-68 loss to University of Nevada-Las Vegas last week.
Michael Alvarado topscored for Manhattan with 15 points while guard George Beamon added eight points.
Both teams had a slow start as the first-half ended with Wisconsin ahead 17-10. The Badgers shot 7-of-30 from the field and only 1-of-13 from three-point range in the first 20 minutes of play. The Jaspers,
meanwhile, converted only five of their 25 attempts.
The Badgers finally found their rhythm early in the second. Led by Leuer, Wisconsin unleashed a 12-4 run to extend its lead to 31-16 with 15 minutes remaining in the game. The senior forward scored seven
points in that decisive run. The Badgers made another 10-0 run later to pull away for good.
Wisconsin's 50-point output, however, is way below their 83 average in their first three games.
"In order to be successful through a tournament, whether it’s a pre-season type tournament, a conference tournament or an NCAA tournament, you’ve got to survive these kind of games," Wisconsin head coach
Bo Ryan said in the post-game interview.
"And then when you get to the next one you try not to have the same thing happen twice," added Ryan, whose wards will next play Boston College in the second round on Friday.
Manhattan coach Barry Rohrssen said their poor offence resulted in their downfall.
"If you would have told me before the game that we’d be able to, maybe, limit them to 36 perccent from the field, I would have felt a lot better about the outcome. Unfortunately, we couldn’t shoot the
ball better than that ourselves. So that hurt us," he said.
“Half-time, it looked like a Thanksgiving football game score instead of a basketball game score. Probably some football teams score more than that today. But neither team shot the ball really well,” Rohrssen
added.
Rohrssen also praised Leuer, who has scored in double digits in 11 straight games since last season. "He’s a tremendous player. A double-double machine," he said.
Manhattan (2-2) will next play Texas A&M in the second round.
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