MINNEAPOLIS — Freshman John Blackwell scored 18 points, Steven Crowl added 17 and the pair made seven of Wisconsin’s season-high 16 3-pointers in an 87-56 rout of Maryland on Thursday in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament.
Wisconsin (20-12) will play No. 4 seed Northwestern in the quarterfinals Friday. The Badgers beat the Wildcats 71-63 on Jan. 13 in the lone regular-season meeting.
Wisconsin dominated the first half, hitting 10 3-pointers in 13 attempts to build a 47-26 lead. That tied the Badgers’ second-most made 3s in a game this season.
Wisconsin made its first six 3s, and after a miss Blackwell added another to make it 31-15 with nine minutes left in the half. Blackwell made all four of his 3-point attempts in the first half and scored 14 points. AJ Storr and Crowl each added two 3-pointers, with Crowl also scoring 14 first-half points.
Crowl and Chucky Hepburn continued the hot shooting after halftime, making 3s on back-to-back possessions during a 18-0 run to open the second half for a 39-point lead.
Maryland didn’t score in the second half until DeShawn Harris-Smith’s 3-pointer with 14:52 left. It was just Maryland’s third 3 of the game.
Eight Badgers made a 3-pointer — a game after the team went 5 of 24 from 3-point range in a 78-70 loss to No. 3 Purdue on Sunday.
Storr finished with 16 points for Wisconsin. The Badgers finished 16 of 25 behind the arc and shot 52% overall.
Jahmir Young led Maryland (16-17) with 18 points. Harris-Smith added 16 and Julian Reese had 10.
Young scored 15 of Maryland’s 26 points in the first half, going 7 of 11 from the field, while the rest of his teammates were 5 of 17.
Michigan State 77, Minnesota 67
A.J. Hoggard scored 17 points on 6-of-6 shooting, and Tyson Walker added 15 points as the eighth-seeded Spartans beat the ninth-seeded Golden Gophers.
Michigan State (19-13) advances to play top seed Purdue in the quarterfinals Friday. The Spartans lost 80-74 at then-No. 2 Purdue on March 2 in the only regular-season meeting. Zach Edey had 32 points and 11 rebounds in that game as the Boilermakers clinched a share of their conference-best 26th regular-season Big Ten championship.
Michigan State went on a 15-2 run over a five-minute stretch to pull away from Minnesota in the second half.
Malik Hall made his second field goal of the game with 11:53 left and completed the three-point play to give Michigan State a 50-49 lead. Hall added a layup with 7:25 left to cap the run for a 59-51 lead as Minnesota missed five field goals during the stretch.
Walker took over down the stretch, scoring eight straight points. He gave Michigan State its first double-digit lead with 3:12 left on a long jumper from the wing, and after a Minnesota basket, he added a shot in the lane to regain the 10-point edge.
He got to the rim once more for a shot that hit hard off the backboard, but Jaxon Kohler followed with a putback to make it 73-64 with 1:46 left.
Hoggard made all five of his shots in the second half for 13 points, Walker was 4 of 6 for 10 points and Michigan State shot 62% after halftime. Hall scored seven of his nine points in the second half.
Dawson Garcia led Minnesota (18-14) with 19 points. Parker Fox, Pharrel Payne and Cam Christie each scored 11. Elijah Hawkins had 10 points and seven assists.
