MADISON, Wis. -- Steve Alford wanted answers for the free throw disparity. Bo Ryan made no apologies for it.
No. 20 Wisconsin held off Iowa 72-69 on Wednesday night thanks to a 27-7 advantage at the free throw line.
Alford said he was stumped by his team taking only 14 free throws compared to Wisconsin's 35, even though his team sent the Badgers to the line 10 times with five intentional fouls over the final 90 seconds.
"That's a very difficult stat to overcome," Alford said. "We've really got to work hard and try to figure out why we foul so much and nobody else does."
Alford was particularly miffed that guard Jeff Horner didn't go to the line once despite playing all 40 minutes, whereas Wisconsin's Kammron Taylor was 9-for-10 from the stripe.
"I can't imagine a kid that plays 40 minutes as hard as he does, and he never goes to the free throw line. That still blows me away," Alford said. "He doesn't go there and Taylor goes 10 times. That's a hard one to figure out."
However, eight of Taylor's free throws came following intentional fouls in the closing seconds, and he made seven of them to ice it.
Ryan didn't point that out but he did have an explanation for his team's huge advantage at the line:
"We went into the post," he said. "We got fouled in the post, attacking the rim. We try not to reach and grab a lot. We try to chest up a lot. We try the same things I'm sure other teams do."
And, he pointed out that the Badgers attempted just 11 3-pointers to Iowa's 21.
"We had a couple of turnovers going inside but I still liked the way we went inside because that usually forces contact of some kind," Ryan said. "And then we were able to dribble attack and get guys on the move where their feet weren't planted and you tend to draw more fouls that way, too."
The Badgers used their advantage to chip away at a 13-point second-half deficit.
"When you're coming back, you have to expend so much energy and getting to the free throw line gave us a chance to catch our wind every once in a while," Wisconsin forward Mike Wilkinson said. "And it stops the clock. You always want to score when the clock's stopped, especially when you're behind. And we did a good job of that and just attacking and drawing fouls."
Taylor, a sophomore, scored a career-high 26 points and Wilkinson added 20 points and four crucial blocks for the Badgers, who trailed 52-39 with 12:43 remaining.
The Badgers (16-5, 7-3 Big Ten) also got 13 clutch points from Alando Tucker, finally healthy after a toe injury kept him out of three conference games and limited him in three others.
The Hawkeyes (15-7, 3-6) looked like they were going to win for the first time without Pierre Pierce, their leading scorer who was kicked off the team last week after police confirmed he was the subject of an investigation into a matter at the town house of a former girlfriend.
Pierce was charged Wednesday with burglary and domestic assault.
"We're not supposed to have any comment on that," said Greg Brunner, who led Iowa with 27 points. He said the players were told to defer questions about Pierce to the athletic director.
In their first game without Pierce and his 17.8 scoring average, the Hawkeyes lost 75-64 to Michigan State at Iowa City, but they looked just fine without him in Madison -- until the final few minutes.
Horner scored 19 points and Adam Haluska added 16 for Iowa, which led for all but about five minutes of the game against short-handed Wisconsin, which didn't have guard Zach Morley (leg) or center Brian Butch (mononucleosis).
The Badgers fell behind by nine points in the first 10 minutes but went to the locker room tied at 34 after Wilkinson's two free throws with no time left capped a 24-15 run.
Horner hit a jumper and two 3-pointers as Iowa raced to a 45-35 lead in the first five minutes of the second half. Horner's 3-pointer with 12:43 remaining gave the Hawkeyes their biggest lead at 52-39, but the Badgers' used a 17-2 run, sparked by Wilkinson's seven points, to regain the lead, then went to the line to win it.
