Indiana Indiana/Wisconsin Wisconsin Men's College Basketball recap on ESPN

"I guess our guys thought because he missed shots in the first half, he was going to miss shots in the second half," Indiana interim coach Mike Davis said after the Hoosiers fell to No. 12 Wisconsin 49-46 on Thursday night.

Penney scored 13 of his 15 points after halftime as the Badgers erased a 12-point first-half deficit to win for the 10th straight time.

"The team was down and none of our movers were getting open, so I tried to get open as much as I could," said Penney, who scored the first eight points of the second half and cut the Badgers' deficit to 28-27.

"I knew they would make a run," Davis said. "They made a run immediately. It rattled us a little bit."

Still, the Hoosiers (9-6, 0-1 Big Ten) were in it until the end.

Dane Fife misfired a 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have tied it for Indiana, which got 19 points from Kirk Haston, including a crucial 3-pointer with nine seconds left that cut the Hoosiers' deficit to 47-46.

Roy Boone was fouled by Tom Cloverdale with 7.7 seconds left and sank both free throws to ice the Badgers' first win in a conference opener in five years.

Wisconsin (10-1, 1-0 Big Ten) managed just one offensive rebound and didn't lead until Penney's 3-pointer from the left baseline with 9:24 left made it 37-35. Its biggest lead was four, when Mike Vershaw sank two free throws with 19 seconds left, making it 47-43.

Wisconsin also won for the 10th straight time since a season-opening loss to No. 9 Tennessee and improved to 8-0 under acting coach Brad Soderberg, who took over when Dick Bennett retired Nov. 30.

It looked like Soderberg was headed for his first loss as the Badgers fell behind by 12 in the first half, when they shot a horrid 8-for-21.

"I think the first few possessions of the second half were key because I really challenged our guys at halftime to just not play with such fear," Soderberg said. "They looked so tentative. We didn't make many strategic adjustments."

The NBA-style offense that Davis implemented after ditching Bobby Knight's motion sets confounded the Badgers, who found themselves mismatched by Indiana's talented front line that at times included three players taller than 6-foot-9. That forced the Badgers to put 6-3 point guard Mike Kelley on Haston, Jared Jeffries or Jeff Newton.

"When they play three big kids, and if I don't have Maurice Linton on the floor, then Mike has to guard one of them and he has to work his tail off to keep the ball out of their hands," Soderberg said. "Then, he has to bring the ball up and get us into our offense."

Linton, who missed the first eight games because of an NCAA suspension, had eight points and eight rebounds.

Davis said the Badgers' experience and double teams finally did in his young team, and Soderberg said he should have started doubling down earlier.

"That team is tough," he said. "They're going to beat a lot of people because you don't see three 6-9, 6-10 guys on the floor at the same time a lot. That was a problem for us."

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Wisconsin's Roy Boone feeds Kirk Penney down low for the bucket.
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Wisconsin's Maurice Linton and Andy Kowskie block IU's Kirk Haston to preserve the Badger victory.
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Indiana's Kirk Haston makes the nifty move and gets the basket and the foul.
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Indiana's Kirk Haston hits the hook over the Wisconsin defense.
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