Hoosiers look to spark Big Ten win streak at Wisconsin

Tom Crean isn’t letting his team get too high after its first Big Ten victory.

After handily defeating Michigan Saturday by 19 points, the IU men’s basketball coach said he has had no tolerance for complacency as the Hoosiers (10-8, 1-4) prepare for a 9 p.m. Thursday road match with No. 17 Wisconsin (13-4, 3-2) on ESPN.

“Any ounce of slippage this week has been addressed abruptly and directly,” Crean said. “They need to understand that they need to play like that consistently. Our biggest problem has not been about players not getting better — it’s been about players getting tougher. You can’t take the next step until your players are getting tougher constantly.”

For Crean, building the right toughness it takes to consistently win begins on the
practice court.

Lack of preparation was not to blame in previous losses to Northwestern and Minnesota, he said. Rather, the team didn’t bring everything it showed in practice to the game like it did Saturday.

“The game the other night was a step in the right direction for bringing your practice mentality to the game,” Crean said. “Now we’ve got to do it on the road, in front of a hostile crowd...As much as I’d like to be home tomorrow night, this is going to be a great test for those guys to see if they can carry over that mindset that they’ve been practicing with and what they played Saturday night with to a road venue.”

Wisconsin enters Thursday as winners of nine of its last 11 games and fresh off a 76-66 victory against No. 16 Illinois. Senior forward Jon Leuer leads the Badgers in scoring with 19.2 points per game and rebounding with 7.4 boards per game.

Wisconsin ranks first in the Big Ten in both scoring defense and assist/turnover ratio, and Crean said both their talent and experience keep the Badgers in the top 25 on a
regular basis.

“They have the balance of inside-outside, but they also have the balance of ages,” Crean said of Wisconsin. “They never run out of leaders there. They’re always grooming somebody for the next position.”

The Badgers have won six in a row against the Hoosiers by an average of 19 points, including a 32-point thumping the previous meeting.

IU has not won at Wisconsin since January 1998. Junior forward Tom Pritchard has been a part of three of IU’s nine consecutive losses at the Kohl Center, and he said the challenges of the building are not lost on the team.

“Some of the older guys and even the sophomores have been down there and know what it’s like,” he said. “It’s a tough environment down there in Wisconsin, but we came off a good win against Michigan, and we know that we’ve got to stay with our defense.”

Will the Hoosiers repeat what they did last weekend and bring their practice mentality against a team no one on the roster has beat?

Pritchard said it’s easier said than done, but he expects similar results.

“I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty tough to do that,” he said. “But I strongly believe that as long as we have energy and be aggressive, then it will show out on the floor. Everything we’ve been working on offensively and defensively will come through.”