Badger men’s basketball team beats Penn State in Big Ten opener

The Wisconsin men’s basketball team overcame a poor shooting night to beat Penn State, 60-51, in their Big Ten Conference opener in Madison. The Badgers shot just 38.6 percent from the floor. They only hit 3 of 17 from three-point range, and they made just half of their 26 free throw attempts.

But the Nittany Lions couldn’t buy a free throw. They only made it to the line twice the whole game, and missed both their attempts.

Wisconsin led by 11 at the break. Penn State got to within one with 2:33 left, when the Badgers closed the game with a 10-2 run. Wisconsin’s front court scored the team’s final 17 points. Ryan Evans, Jared Berggren and Ben Brust each had 13 to lead the Badgers, and Mike Bruesewitz had 12.

Jermaine Marshall led Penn State with 19. The Nittany Lions shot 46 percent. They out-rebounded the Badgers 31-28.

Penn State committed 15 turnovers to just four for Wisconsin.

The Nittany Lions fell to 8-5 overall. The Badgers improved to 10-4. They play at Nebraska on Sunday.

Football coach hires seven assistants

Wisconsin’s new football coach has announced the hirings of seven of his nine assistants.

Gary Andersen says he’ll bring three coaches with him from his previous staff at Utah State – defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Dave Aranda, offensive line coach T.J. Woods and secondary coach Bill Busch.

Andy Ludwig will be the Badgers’ new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He ran the offense at San Diego State for the last two years.

Defensive line coach Chad Kauha’aha’a (cow-ha-a-ha-a) is moving to the Wisconsin from Utah, where he coached the defensive line for the last two seasons.

Anderson is keeping two of Bret Bielema’s UW assistants – running backs coach Thomas Hammock and assistant secondary coach Ben Strickland.

It’s still possible that Bart Miller will stay on as the tight ends coach, but that’s not certain yet. Miller ran the offensive line starting in week 3 of the 2012 season. Although he has two other offers, he says he’d like to stay with the Badgers.

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