MADISON, Wis. -- After five Big Ten games, Wisconsin has five wins -- and five different leading scorers.
On Saturday night, it was Marcus Landry, whose career-high 21 points helped No. 17 Wisconsin beat Northwestern 62-50.
He became the fifth different Wisconsin player to lead the team with at least 20 points in the Badgers' first five Big Ten games.
"I don't think it's ever happened in the history of the game. And if it has, I want to know the team, I want to know the year, and I'm going to call the coach," said Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, whose program has never had seen such a streak of scoring balance before. "Would anybody in their wildest dream ever think that that would happen?"
The Badgers' leading scorers in their first four Big Ten games were Jon Leuer (25 points vs. Michigan), Brian Butch (22 vs. Iowa), Trevon Hughes (22 vs. Illinois) and Michael Flowers (23 vs. Penn State). All but Leuer are starters.
"It just shows how unselfish we are as a team. Any guy can score any amount of points on this team because we're so well-balanced," Landry said. "It's a weapon of ours -- other teams can't focus on one or two or three guys. They have to focus on all five guys on the court."
The Badgers (15-2, 5-0 Big Ten) used a 13-2 run at the start of the second half to break open a close game.
"I thought we controlled the game pretty nicely in the first half," said Wildcats coach Bill Carmody. "But then coming out in the second half, they just really defended, pressed down on us. It quickly went from a close game at half to a 10-point game. We sort of hung around a little bit, but we couldn't get them to the point where they felt uncomfortable."
Landry scored 15 of his points after halftime, including five during the opening stretch of the period when the Badgers pulled away.
Wisconsin maintained at least an eight-point lead the rest of the game. Landry's previous career best was 19 points against Eastern Kentucky on Nov. 19, 2005.
Joe Krabbenhoft added 13 points and nine rebounds and Flowers scored 11 for the Badgers.
Michael Thompson led Northwestern (6-9, 0-5) with 16 points.
Wisconsin attempted 37 foul shots to Northwestern's 13, and outrebounded the Wildcats 29-21.
"They're the more aggressive team," Carmody said. "They were getting the ball inside and they've got a couple big guys in there that are pretty hard for us to handle."
