Wisconsin’s Badgers got their turn Sunday.
Their turn to drape themselves in championship T-shirts and baseball caps.
Their turn to haul away a championship trophy.
And Illinois helped make it all possible.
The 10th-ranked and second-seeded Badgers (23-6) upended Illinois 70-53 Sunday at Conseco Fieldhouse to win their first Big Ten tournament title.
They brought Illinois’ 12-game winning streak to a screeching halt one week after No. 12 and top-seeded Illinois (24-6) celebrated its first regular-season outright conference championship in 52 years at Ohio State.
“We couldn’t beat Illinois for the regular title, but this one is pretty good because we’ve been playing pretty well at the end,” said Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, whose team has won seven straight behind Devin Harris.
Harris, the Big Ten’s player of the year, scored 29 points and was a unanimous choice as the tournament’s outstanding player. His moves were sometimes sleek and other times gritty, but always impressive.
From the last 1 minute 8 seconds in the first half through the first 6 1/2 minutes of the second half, Harris scored 14 straight for Wisconsin. He kept the Illini down by 12 at the half and never allowed them to recover. With 6:58 left, they trailed by 21.
“[Harris] is very deceptive,” Illinois coach Bruce Weber said. “He doesn’t look quick, but he is quick. As soon as he gets his shoulder by you, it’s old-school basketball. He knows how to get to the basket, and then he can stop on a dime and shoot it.”
The Wisconsin junior was joined on the all-tournament team by teammate Mike Wilkinson, Illinois’ Dee Brown and Deron Williams and Northwestern’s Jitim Young.
After the game Illinois found out it received a fifth seed in the NCAA tournament’s Atlanta regional and will play 12th-seeded Murray State in a first-round game Friday in Columbus, Ohio. Wisconsin is seeded sixth out of the East Rutherford, N.J., regional and will play its first-round game Friday in Milwaukee against Richmond, seeded 11th.
The Illini, whose last loss came Jan. 24 to Wisconsin, will go into the NCAA tournament truly humbled–if not humiliated.
They shot 29.2 percent in the first half and allowed Wisconsin to shoot 63.2 percent in the last 20 minutes. For the game, Illinois shot 32.7 percent, going 16-for-49, while Wisconsin finished at 53.3 percent (24-for-45).
Brown was the only Illinois player who could keep up with Wisconsin. The sophomore guard, fighting shin splints and a slight groin injury, scored eight of Illinois’ first nine points and finished with a team-high 15.
“Dee has shin problems, but he sure was quick,” Weber said. “If anyone had energy, he did. He was probably our only offense in the first half.”
Williams, stricken with the flu Friday and Saturday, came on late–too late to rescue Illinois–and scored 14.
“We’re disappointed,” Williams said. “We wanted to take both the [tournament] championship as well as the Big Ten regular-season championship, but things didn’t go our way.
“The biggest thing is we have to keep our head up because the most important part of the season is ahead of us.”
