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Another rough-and-tumble night of chasing after the slippery Neitzel through countless screens? What’s not to love about that?
Anybody who would think he didn’t relish another crack at Neitzel on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Conference Tournament simply doesn’t understand how much Flowers enjoys playing defense.
“Mike’s a warrior,” Wisconsin sophomore forward Joe Krabbenhoft said. “He’s got one of the biggest hearts on this team, maybe in the country. He loves playing defense. Any time he can go out there and face a competitor like Drew Neitzel ... he’s pretty fired up.”
At least it made the preparation easy. “We didn’t have to go back through many tapes,” Wisconsin assistant coach Greg Gard said. “We kind of felt like Groundhog’s Day there for three weeks, it was always Michigan State.”
Armed with some helpful advice from his mom, Flowers turned in the kind of performance in the Badgers’ 70-57 victory at the United Center that earned him a spot on the conference’s all-defensive team earlier in the week.
“I think he’s the best perimeter defender in the Big Ten,” Gard said. “Obviously, (Ohio State’s Greg) Oden does a lot of things in the middle. I wouldn’t trade (Flowers), I know that, for anybody else.”
After scoring a combined 50 points in the first two meetings, Neitzel was limited to 10 points on 3-for-13 shooting, although he did have eight assists.
“I made him take tough shots,” Flowers said. “Unfortunately for him, they weren’t going in, but in the past, he’s been making those tough shots.”
The biggest difference from the first two games is Flowers did a better job of keeping the ball out of Neitzel’s hands.
“My mom talked to me (Thursday) night,” Flowers said. “She was like, ‘Can you score if you don’t have the ball?’ I was like, ‘No.’ She really emphasized to me, playing Drew Neitzel the whole court, if he gives it up, make sure he doesn’t get it back. I tried to do that tonight.”
Neitzel scored his first two points on free throws, with 10 minutes, 52 seconds remaining, following a technical foul on Wisonsin coach Bo Ryan.
After missing his first seven shots, Neitzel came off two screens and hit a 3-pointer with 9:16 to play for his first field goal.
On top of his defense, Flowers scored all eight of his points, including two 3-pointers, in a 10-0 run to start the game.
“My offensive game hasn’t been doing (as well as) my defensive game, but hitting those shots, that pumped everybody up on the team,” Flowers said.
If Neitzel had not scored five points in the final 3:47, he would have been outscored by Flowers. Now, who could have imagined that?
“After everybody watched what they did to us in East Lansing (Mich.),” Flowers said of the 28 points Neitzel scored in the first meeting, “I don’t think anybody would have believed that.”
