MADISON, Wis. — If Ohio State and Wisconsin's basketball teams were two girls going to the prom, they'd show up wearing the same dress. The Buckeyes' ensemble just might contain a few more shiny ribbons and bows.
No. 3 Ohio State (19-3, 7-2 in the Big Ten) travels to face No. 19 Wisconsin (18-5, 7-3) at 1 p.m. CT on Saturday with first place in the conference up for grabs, and the teams will lean heavily on an eerily similar propensity for defensive tenaciousness. No teams in the country allow fewer points per possession than the Buckeyes and Badgers, meaning baskets will be at a premium at the Kohl Center.
Unlike the prom dresses, Saturday's game doesn't figure to be pretty.
Ohio State coach Thad Matta even has a suggestion for Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan before the teams play what most presume will be a low-scoring, eyesore-inducing affair.
"I think the one thing we're going to try to do to help that," Matta said, "is I'm going to call coach Ryan to see if we can implement a 24-second shot clock."
Neither team is likely to find much success in attempting to speed up the pace of play, with Ohio State (0.81) and Wisconsin (0.83) ranking 1-2 in the NCAA in defensive points per possession. The Badgers are first in the country in scoring defense (49.6 points per game), while the Buckeyes are seventh (55.6).
"They take a lot of pride in their defense," Badgers forward Mike Bruesewitz said of Ohio State. "They're becoming more and more like us in the fact that we want to sit down and play defense. They really embrace that."
Coaches around the Big Ten stressed earlier this week that while both Wisconsin and Ohio State succeed defensively, they do so in completely different ways. The Buckeyes are known to harass passing lanes and have forced 135 more turnovers than the Badgers.
"They're definitely two ends of the spectrum," Penn State coach Patrick Chambers said. "Ohio State obviously has the athleticism and speed and toughness. Wisconsin just beats you up, takes your legs out."
"The Ohio State length is really an issue," Indiana coach Tom Crean said. "What Ohio State does, they just get up into you. They really force you to make basketball plays. … Wisconsin's defense is a little bit more of being inside the three-point line. They do an excellent job of using their chest to create that contact rather than using all their length."
Ryan sounded somewhat irked that the tag "athletic" isn't traditionally used to describe Wisconsin, which annually is among the national leaders in several defensive categories.
"Somebody (the other day) said, athletically, you look at Ohio State and say, 'Wow, there's no question they're a good defensive team,'" Ryan said. "So, the guy stopped there, and I said, 'Well what about us?'"
Wisconsin's defense in recent years has certainly been good enough to fluster Ohio State. The Buckeyes have lost all six games at the Kohl Center during Matta's eight-year tenure in charge.
Last year, Wisconsin rallied from a 15-point deficit to knock off No. 1 Ohio State 71-67 at the Kohl Center as the student section rushed the court.
Matchups between Matta and Ryan are nothing new and actually date back a dozen years, when Matta coached in 2000-01 at Butler and Ryan coached at UW-Milwaukee. Both teams played in what was then known as the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now the Horizon League).
Since that time, both have become the two winningest coaches in Big Ten history, and the margin between them is the slimmest of percentage points. Ryan has won 71.34 percent of Big Ten games (127-51), while Matta has won 71.31 percent (92-37).
"He's one guy that has built a fantastic program on a system, and he's recruited to his system," Matta said. "He's had guys, with the exception of maybe (NBA player) Devin Harris, that have stayed in the program. He's been able to redshirt some guys and really does a good job with his system."
Perhaps no player embodies Ryan's system better than point guard Jordan Taylor, who isn't flashy, but is intelligent enough to be one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award for national point guard of the year. Taylor leads the Badgers in points (14.1) and assists (4.3) and has been instrumental in Wisconsin's current six-game winning streak.
He'll be matched up against an equally talented point guard in Ohio State's Aaron Craft, who ranks in the top 20 nationally in steals per game. Like Taylor, Craft is a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award.
"He's tenacious," Taylor said. "He doesn't quit. It seems like he never gets tired. You would think a guy that plays 35 minutes a game would get tired and relax. He's just relentless. Obviously, he kind of spearheads their defensive effort."
Without question, Ohio State's biggest advantage against Wisconsin comes in the post, where 6-foot-9 sophomore Jared Sullinger has dominated this season. Sullinger, a preseason All-American, is averaging 17.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game.
"Jared came in here with such a high basketball IQ," Matta said. "I think that's continued to grow and expand. He really understands things even better than he did last year. He seems to be a little bit more patient this year."
In order to slow Sullinger and capture the Big Ten lead, Wisconsin players say it will require a complete team effort, not unlike the way the Badgers have played defensively all season.
This much is clear: Whichever team wins will be the belle of the Big Ten ball, no matter how ugly it looks.
"I think it'll be another game of getting loose balls," Bruesewitz said. "It might be the team with the bloodiest jersey at the end is going to come out on top."
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