Wisconsin’s Grating Style Doesn’t Cut It

They once made a movie called “As Good as It Gets.”

Well, this was As Bad As it Gets.

Wisconsin vs. Michigan State was basketball for the brave-hearted.

Poor Dick Bennett. He spent three weeks making us believe his brand of ugly, defensive-minded basketball actually had a place in this world.

Like Sisyphus, he pushed his rock-of-a-team up the NCAA tournament mountain, only to watch Michigan State roll it back on him Saturday at the RCA Dome.

Michigan State won, 53-41, and that was only after a second-half scoring “explosion.”

Forget the others. This was the Wisconsin game that will set basketball back 50 years.

Or, perhaps you missed the first half.

Michigan State led, 19-17, and the thing was, Wisconsin thought it was all hunky-dory, the popular catch-phrase folks used in use in the black-and-white days when teams regularly combined for 36-point halves.

“I was happy with the halftime score,” Wisconsin forward Andy Kowske said.

Bennett warned us this might happen. He told us his team was barely watchable when it won and, given that every victory in the NCAA tournament has significance, his Badgers captured a lot of hearts en route to a Final Four berth.

And then, with a nation watching, we got the Wisconsin backlash, and Michigan State had no choice but to go along for the ride.

“Boys against men out there,” Kowske remarked. “Just look at the stats.”

Must we?

It will be little consolation that Wisconsin outshot Michigan State, 34.9% to 34.8%.

Wisconsin was outrebounded, 42-20, a staggering 14-2 advantage on the offensive boards.

The Badgers’ trio of Mark Vershaw, Jon Bryant and Kowske, which averaged a combined 37.1 points a game during the tournament, finished with nine.

Wisconsin scored only two more points than it had in a 39-34 triumph in the 1941 national title game, and only one more point than the Badger football team amassed last year in a 40-10 victory against Michigan State.

“It was an ugly game,” Kowske said.

The ugliest.

Vershaw, the team’s leading scorer, played scared, as though he had won a spot in the starting lineup in a pregame contest.

Early in game, Bennett yanked Vershaw from the lineup for missing too many blocks. “Blocks” are what Bennett calls screens. Bennett started his career in Vince Lombardi’s heyday in Wisconsin, and patterned his simplistic but meticulous style after the legendary Green Bay Packer coach.

Somewhere, in heaven, Lombardi must have been watching Wisconsin and screaming “Grab! Grab! Grab!”

“Mark and I spat often,” Bennett said of his run-in with Vershaw, who made two of 11 shots and finished with only two rebounds. “Usually he’s right and I’m wrong. Tonight, I was right. I sensed he didn’t want the physical play. I sensed that it was bothering him.”

Vershaw entered the game as the only Badger averaging double figures in scoring.

“We count on him to score,” Bennett said. “He simply couldn’t find anything.

The Wisconsin field goals broke down as such: Six first-half baskets:

18:36: 12-foot bank shot by Boone, Roy.

15:49: 18-foot right side jump shot by Wills, Charlie.

13:55: Follow layup by Boone, Roy.

7:58: Six-foot left baseline jump shot by Vershaw, Mark.

6:51: Three-point, 20-foot, left baseline jump shot by Penney, Kirk.

1:51: Three-point, 21-foot right side jump shot by Boone, Roy.

And nine, second-half baskets:

17:09: Eight-foot left angle bank by Kelley, Mike.

12:36: Three-point, 20-foot circle jump shot by Penney, Kirk.

8:11: Three-point, 21-foot left side jump shot by Davis, Travon.

7:09: Driving layup by Kowske, Andy.

5:40: Layup by Bryant, Jon.

3:17: Eight-foot, right base line turnaround jump shot by Vershaw, Mark.

2:53 Layup by Boone, Roy.

1:41: Layup by Boone, Roy.

0:35: Turnaround flip by Boone, Roy.

Boone scored 18 points. The rest of the team combined for 23.

None of this should disparage what the Badgers have accomplished. There are 318 schools playing Division I basketball. For Wisconsin to end up as one of only four teams playing is a testament to something.

To what?

Wisconsin players never wavered from Bennett’s conservative script. If a few guys take off on their own directions, this story folds like a house of cheese in early March.

The Badgers made the tournament after finishing sixth in the Big Ten at 8-8. They knew the way they play was the only way to beat Fresno State, Arizona, Louisiana State and Purdue.

The players believed in Bennett.

“We’ve never been affected by the criticism,” Kowske said. “This run shows that.”

Someone asked Kelley after the game if fans would ever come to grips with the Badgers’ plodding style.

“They understand it,” Kelley said. “They just don’t like it.”

Yet Bennett said Friday he’d trade 35 years of criticism for this magic moment.

Wouldn’t you?

“This team will go down as one of my very favorites,” he said. “Because they’re more like the coach than any of them in that they’re vulnerable, a lot of weaknesses, make a lot of mistakes. Sometimes they get a little frightened, you know, sometimes not sure.

“But with a very good heart. Always try.”

At the end of a long season Bennett, 56, sounded like a man contemplating retirement.

“You don’t want to make a decision when you’re really elated or really depressed over a situation,” he said. “You just want to keep things where they belong. And at the appropriate time I’ll know.”

The Badgers need Bennett.

No, the game needs Bennett.

As bad as his team looked Saturday, he brings discipline and dignity to a game that sorely needs it.

Bennett needs to take some time off, rest up, clear his thoughts.

Then he needs to go recruit three guys who can shoot.