Wisconsin men’s basketball: UW battles back from early deficit to beat Texas A&M

The Badgers started out overwhelmed and overmatched, but turned things around and beat the Aggies by double digits.

In the first few minutes of the first game of the Maui Invitational, it looked like one team was going to get run out of the arena and, folks, it was the team who ended up winning! The Texas A&M Aggies (4-1 overall, 0-0 SEC) started off scorching hot from three, making six of their first seven, and at one point leading the Wisconsin Badgers (3-1 overall, 0-0 Big Ten) by 16 points.

The Badgers started slowly chipping away and then ended the first half on a 15-1 run which gave them the lead by one point heading into halftime!

Halfway through the second half, the Badgers had built a 16-point lead of their own and the rest of the game was academic as Wisconsin went on to win 69-58. UW won the battle of the boards 36-29 and grabbed 11 offensive boards to A&M’s five, which helped the Badgers have a 10 point advantage in second chance points. Wisconsin also forced 16 Texas A&M turnovers and scored 22 points off of those Aggie miscues.

Wisconsin plays Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. CT against the winner of Butler vs. No. 15 Houston in the semifinals.

Photo by David Becker/Getty Images

Notable stat lines

Jonathan Davis: career-high 21 points (8-of-18), nine rebounds, two assists, two steals
Brad Davison: 19 points (5-of-16), seven rebounds, three assists
Steven Crowl: 10 points (4-of-9), four rebounds, two assists, one block, team-high +18
Tyler Wahl: six points (3-of-8), four rebounds, one assist, one block, three steals

Quenton Jackson (Texas A&M): 15 points (5-of-11), five rebounds, two steals