Pioneers fall to Big Ten Badgers

Tuesday's exhibition basketball game between the UW-Platteville and the Wisconsin Badgers had a family reunion-type of feel.

There were high school acquaintances playing against each other, coaching staffs closely tied together, and family and friends cheering for both teams. Like most family gatherings, the bigger brother won.

Defending Big Ten tournament champion Wisconsin beat the NCAA Division III Pioneers 78-44 before an announced crowd of 17,124 at the Kohl Center in Madison.

The game matched the Pioneers against former UW-Platteville Coach Bo Ryan, who guided UWP to four NCAA III national championships during the 1990s who has now guided the Badgers to two Big Ten regular-season titles in his first two years and last season's conference tournament title in his third.

Ryan and Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference commissioner Gary Karner introduced legislation that was approved by the NCAA that allows for these exhibition games.

The Badgers will play the WIAC schools on a rotating basis. UW-Platteville was the natural choice for the first contest. Many in the large crowd came from Platteville as fans have season tickets for both schools.

"The hardest thing is that we're all fans," Pioneer Coach Paul Combs said. "I had to fight myself from clapping along with their fight song."

The Pioneers took an early 7-4 lead after five minutes, helped by Brad Reitzner's three-point basket and subsequent free throw after being fouled.

"I thought it showed that a Division III can play in spurts with a Division I team, but as time went on, you found the difference between the different levels," said Reitzner, a preseason all-American.

The Badgers tied the score on Sharif Chambliss's three-point basket and never trailed again. UW went up 25-10 and settled for a 38-22 lead at the end of the first half that finished with a memorable sequence.

The Badgers' Alondo Tucker took an alley-oop feed from Kammron Taylor and slammed the ball over the Pioneer defense. While the crowd stood and applauded, the Pioneers quickly in-bounded the ball, and Brad Reitzner passed it long to freshman Jeff Skemp, who answered with his own dunk.

"That's one of the best basketball sequences, when they throw one down and you come back with a dunk," Skemp said. "I've always been taught you have to keep playing the game. You can't stand there and go 'wow.'"

Skemp, a 6-10 freshman from Southwestern High School, led all scorers with 16 points, hitting 7 of 11 from the field. He was the only Pioneer in double figures.

"Skemp was marvelous," Combs said. "He has such a bright future ... the sky is the limit for him."

Mike Wilkinson, an all-Big 10 performer, led the Badgers with 15 points, while Tucker had 12, and Andreas Helmig and Zach Morley each had 11. The Pioneers came away impressed with their up close look at the nation's 21st-ranked team.

"In Division III, you can run into a guy who is really quick, but you don't run into a guy like that who can shoot," Reitzner said. "At our level you can play to a guys' strength, but when you're playing a Big Ten team, they're pretty much all-around great players."

The difference was especially noticeable on the Pioneer offensive end. The Badgers, who led the Big Ten in scoring defense and finished fifth nationally, were continually up tight against the Pioneers, making shots difficult.

"My hat's off to Wisconsin," Combs said. "That's a very disciplined team. It's remarkable how they can be so sound fundamentally and so efficient on both ends of the floor. At one time I looked up, and saw they had one foul, and we had eight. That's a credit to how well they position themselves and play defense with their feet."

The final score mattered not so much as the whole event.

"It was great," Skemp said. "Everyone's going to look at the score, but for us this will make us a better team and make us better people and help us go farther this year.

"The experiences we learned this evening are invaluable to the program going into the season," Combs said.

The Pioneers open their regular season Friday in their own tip-off tournament. Viterbo and Lawrence play at 6 p.m., and the Pioneers face Concordia at 8 p.m. The consolation game is Saturday at 1:30 p.m. with the championship at 4 p.m.

Both Lawrence and UWP are ranked in the D3hoops.com top 25. The Vikings are seventh, while the Pioneers are 24th. Concordia won its conference, while Viterbo is coming off an 18-15 season.

Written by then UW-Platteville sports information director, Paul Erickson

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