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Sports

Wisconsin crushes Nicholls

By Sports Network
Published | Updated

Madison, WI (SportsNetwork.com) - Sam Dekker scored 17 points and grabbed five rebounds in No. 5 Wisconsin's 86-43 win over Nicholls.

Dekker scored 13 of those points in the first half for the Badgers (10-1), who led by as much as 45.

Josh Gasser added 14 points for Wisconsin, and Nigel Hayes chipped in 12 points and eight boards.

Amin Torres scored 14 points off the bench to lead the Colonels (1-5), and Sam McBeath netted nine points on 4-of-6 shooting.

Wisconsin owned a 41-26 edge on the boards and outscored Nicholls 36-26 in the paint. The Badgers also scored 19 points off 21 Colonels turnovers.

The Colonels never led in what quickly became a blowout. It took over four minutes for Nicholls to get its second basket and then six minutes to get its third.

Nicholls started the game 4-of-21 as the Badgers ran out to a 39-8 lead, and it finished the half with an abysmal 24.1 field goal percentage.

"Well, they are as good as advertised in my opinion," said Colonels coach J.P. Piper. "We've watched a lot of tape, and everything we thought would be a problem for us tonight was in fact a problem for us."

Meanwhile the Badgers, particularly Dekker and Hayes, could not be stopped. They took a 47-15 lead into the locker room with those two combining for 24 points on 10-of-11 shooting. Wisconsin combined to shoot 70.4 percent as a team.

"Overall, I think we were pretty balanced," said Dekker. "It's good to get other guys in the game and get them double figure minutes when they may not get to play as much."

The Colonels managed to shoot 47.8 percent in the second half, but they fell behind even more. Wisconsin's shooting went cold from the field and had to make up for it at the line. The Badgers hit 20-of-26 from the charity stripe to make up for their 33.3 percent second-half performance from the floor.

Game Notes

This was the first meeting between these teams ... The Badgers held a lead for all but 1:10 in the game ... After a nine-day break for finals, Wisconsin travels to Cal to take on the Golden Bears ... Nicholls' next game is against Arkansas-Monitcello on Dec. 16.