Badgers Bounce No. 14 Hoosiers
Standing at the foul line with the game in the balance, Mike Kelley was just concentrating on his ride home.
With big free throws from Kelley and a career-high 16 points from Maurice Linton, Wisconsin roared from behind in the closing minutes to upset No. 14 Indiana 56-53 Sunday in the Big Ten's final regular-season game.
Linton put the Badgers ahead on a crashing layup with 59 seconds left, and Kelley made four tense free throws over the final 25 seconds. After the game's controversial finish, the Wisconsin student body stormed the court and lifted Kelley onto its collective shoulders just like he had imagined moments earlier.
"I've never had the crowd rush the court before," Kelley said. "I was just thinking, please let me make these so they can rush the court. That's the best way you could end the year here."
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Indiana's Dane Fife missed a 3-pointer with three seconds left, and television replays indicated that the ball bounced off a Wisconsin player and landed out of bounds with at least one second showing.
But the clock ran to 0:00 and the buzzer sounded. After a short conference, the officials declared the game over.
That drew a clipboard-throwing display of anger from Indiana coach Bobby Knight, who attempted to grab official Ed Hightower and plead his case.
Afterward, Hightower said the officials had determined that the buzzer sounded at about the same time one official blew his whistle, making the play non-reviewable.
Knight didn't comment directly on the game's ending.
"Let me put it (this) way, we didn't have a chance to win at the end of the ballgae," Knight said. "Wisconsin really deserved to win the game the way they came back. They played harder than we did in the last 10 minutes."
Wisconsin got just its second win over the Hoosiers in the schools' last 37 meetings.
The victory also may have ensured an NCAA tournament berth for Wisconsin (16-12, 8-8 Big Ten), which beat a ranked team at the Kohl Center for the fourth time this season. The game was meaningless for the Hoosiers (20-7, 10-6), who will meet No. 25 Illinois on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament in Chicago.
"I think we're in," Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett said. "Take it for whatever you want but I think we've done enough this year that we don't have to worry about it."
After falling behind 50-45 with 4:13 to play, Wisconsin held Indiana without a point for four minutes while scoring nine straight. With the score tied at 50, Linton made a reckless drive into the lane, crashed into Lynn Washington and somehow scored, giving the Badgers their first lead in 33 minutes.
"He kind of took my legs out from up under me," Linton said. "I wasn't really worried about the finish. I was worried about the landing."
Kelley added two free throws before Michael Lewis hit a 3-pointer with 12 seconds to play. After two more free throws from Kelley, who had 10 points, Fife badly missed a 3-pointer and set off the disputed ending.
Wisconsin snapped a four-game losing streak against the Hoosiers. The sixth-seeded Badgers open the conference tournament Thursday against Northwestern.
A.J. Guyton led the Hoosiers with 23 points, but he missed two open jumpers and a free throw in the closing minutes of his final Big Ten regular-season game. Kirk Haston had 14 points, just two of which came after halftime as Indiana tightened up.
Guyton hit a 3-pointer and a long jumper to give Indiana a 44-32 lead with 11:31 to play, but Duany Duany a Bloomington, Ind., native who wasn't heavily recruited by Knight responded with nine straight points for the Badgers during a 13-2 run.
"I was just thinking, it's now or never," Duany said. "The game, the NCAAs, all of it is on the line. We've got to get it going."
The game was Knight's first in Wisconsin since he accidentally shot a friend while hunting grouse in the northwestern part of the state in October. Knight was cited for failing to report the accident, which wasn't serious.
Dozens of Wisconsin students wore hunters' orange to the game, and the students chanted "Please don't shoot me!" in the first half.
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