By Joan Niesen
FOXSportsNorth.com
MINNEAPOLIS — He wouldn't have wanted to remember it like that.
With a 51-49 lead and just 1:12 remaining in the Badgers' eventual 68-61 win over Minnesota on Thursday night, Jordan Taylor shot too soon. He wasn't set; he was rushed, and the senior guard's 3-point shot landed nowhere near the basket.
It got worse. Just a turnover later, Taylor had another chance, and he missed yet again.
When the Gophers tied the game at 51 on two Austin Hollins free throws, that air ball loomed large. Taylor, who grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, had a chance to push the game out of reach, and he'd missed — twice. The 22 points he'd already scored would have faded in a loss, as would Taylor's chances at just one collegiate win at Williams Arena.
Fortunately for the guard and for his team, the Gophers were unable to make their final shot of regulation, a low-probability attempt Minnesota guard Andre Hollins called "crazy" after the game.
"I'm very highly upset with myself," Hollins said. "I should have gotten the ball on the rim at least. … That's going to haunt me for a while."
After Hollins' error, Taylor got another chance to define the game, one last chance to get that win in overtime. With his team faltering at the end of the half — Minnesota ended regulation on a 10-0 run — Taylor knew adjustments needed to be made, though Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan was hesitant to say his team blew its lead.
"I think what Minnesota did was they cut the deficit," Ryan said. "They hit some tough shots. We were trying to get to the free throw line, trying to get some open looks. They steeped up their defense. They really got into us."
So instead of trying to re-define their offense for overtime, the Badgers needed to neutralize Minnesota's resurgent scoring. In the Wisconsin huddle at the end of regulation, there wasn't panic. In fact, Taylor said, the team's discussion wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The Badgers talked about how to slow down the Gophers. Wisconsin needed to regroup, and that's just what it did in overtime, making 15 of 17 free throws and outscoring Minnesota, 17-10.
Six of those 17 free throws belonged to Taylor, and he made all but one, finishing the night with a team-high 27 points. After a 14-point first half that included four 3-pointers, Taylor's offense had stalled somewhat in the final 20 minutes of regulation. He redeemed himself in overtime, though, with a near-perfect performance, and his free throw with 4 seconds remaining sealed the win for the No. 21 Badgers.
"I haven't won here, so I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't enjoy that one a little bit," Taylor said.
And though Taylor couldn't say where Thursday night's game ranks among the many times he's played at Williams Arena, it definitely was an improvement over the two other times he'd taken the court there in a Wisconsin uniform. His team fell 51-46 to the Gophers on March 4, 2009, then lost again in Taylor's sophomore season, 68-52, on Feb. 18, 2010.
Taylor, who was named Minnesota's Mr. Basketball in 2008, won a state championship that year at Benilde-St. Margaret's High School in Minneapolis. He played at Williams Arena several times before attending Wisconsin, starting when he was 9 or 10 years old, he said, and he counts at least one member of the Gophers team as a friend.
Minnesota forward Rodney Williams has known Taylor since the older guard played on Williams' grandfather's AAU team when Taylor was in third grade. Williams, then a second-grader, was allowed to practice with the team at times, and the next year he played with Taylor.
"He was like the first one to come up to me afterwards, talk to me and shoot around with me," Williams said. "He just made it comfortable for me."
Now, 13 years later, the relationship has changed. Taylor is still the older, more experienced player, but he's lining up against his former teammate. Homecomings like Taylor's make for strange matchups, facing off against friends and listening to the cheers of a hostile crowd in an arena that was once friendly ground. They also make for awkward definitions; away has become home, and home has become away.
"It feels good," Taylor said of the win. "Definitely, definitely good to win at home. Just anytime we can get a road win against a tough opponent, it's nice."
Read it closely. He might not make sense, but it's impossible not to know what he means. For Taylor, Williams Arena will always carry just a hint of home, and on Thursday the senior may have gotten one more chance than he should have at a final "home" win.
Although that final free throw may not have decided the winner, it mattered to Taylor. It didn't erase the memory of those missed threes, but it went a long way in reminding him that he was the force behind a Badgers' win in Minneapolis.
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