MINNEAPOLIS — Freshman John Blackwell scored 18 points, Steven Crowl added 17 and the pair made seven of Wisconsin’s season-high 16 3-pointers in an 87-56 rout of Maryland on Thursday in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament.
Wisconsin (20-12) will play No. 4 seed Northwestern in the quarterfinals Friday. The Badgers beat the Wildcats 71-63 on Jan. 13 in the lone regular-season meeting.
Wisconsin dominated the first half, hitting 10 3-pointers in 13 attempts to build a 47-26 lead. That tied the Badgers’ second-most made 3s in a game this season.
Wisconsin made its first six 3s, and after a miss Blackwell added another to make it 31-15 with nine minutes left in the half. Blackwell made all four of his 3-point attempts in the first half and scored 14 points. AJ Storr and Crowl each added two 3-pointers, with Crowl also scoring 14 first-half points.
Crowl and Chucky Hepburn continued the hot shooting after halftime, making 3s on back-to-back possessions during a 18-0 run to open the second half for a 39-point lead.
Eight Badgers made a 3-pointer — a game after the team went 5 of 24 from 3-point range in a 78-70 loss to No. 3 Purdue on Sunday. The Badgers finished 16 of 25 behind the arc and shot 52% overall.
Jahmir Young led Maryland (16-17) with 18 points. He scored 15 of Maryland’s 26 points in the first half, going 7 of 11 from the field, while the rest of his teammates were 5 of 17.
Ohio State 90, Iowa 78
Jamison Battle scored all 23 of his points in the second half and the Buckeyes never trailed in beating the Hawkeyes.
The 10th-seeded Buckeyes (20-12) will play No. 2 seed Illinois in the quarterfinals Friday. Illinois won the regular-season matchup 87-75 on Jan. 30. That was before Jake Diebler took over as interim coach. Under Diebler, the Buckeyes have won six of seven games, including the last five.
Diebler took over for Chris Holtmann, who was fired by Ohio State in mid-February and was hired by DePaul as its coach earlier Thursday.
“I’m so happy for Coach Holman,” Diebler said on the court in a postgame broadcast interview. “So happy for him and he’s going to do great. He’s a great coach.
“But listen, our guys have come together. They’ve battled. We’ve raised our toughness and our togetherness, and that’s been the biggest difference.”
Payton Sandfort led the seventh-seeded Hawkeyes (18-14) with 19 points.
Michigan State 77, Minnesota 67
A.J. Hoggard scored 17 points on 6-of-6 shooting, and Tyson Walker added 15 points as the eighth-seeded Spartans beat the ninth-seeded Golden Gophers.
Michigan State (19-13) advances to play top seed Purdue in the quarterfinals Friday. The Spartans lost 80-74 at then-No. 2 Purdue on March 2 in the only regular-season meeting. Zach Edey had 32 points and 11 rebounds in that game as the Boilermakers clinched a share of their conference-best 26th regular-season Big Ten championship.
Michigan State went on a 15-2 run over a five-minute stretch to pull away from Minnesota in the second half.
Malik Hall made his second field goal of the game with 11:53 left and completed the three-point play to give Michigan State a 50-49 lead. Hall added a layup with 7:25 left to cap the run for a 59-51 lead as Minnesota missed five field goals during the stretch.
Dawson Garcia led Minnesota (18-14) with 19 points.
Associated Press , 2024-03-15 02:11:09
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