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Wisconsin guard Ben Brust (bottom left) celebrates with his team mates after defeating Vanderbilt 60-57 Saturday in The Pit. Wisconsin will advance to the Sweet 16.

Wisconsin staves off Vanderbilt 60-57

Down two with six seconds left, Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins put up a 3-pointer that would win his team the game, but it didn’t go in.

No.4 Wisconsin came out with the 60-57 victory over No.5 Vanderbilt in the third round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday at The Pit.

Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said his team was lucky Jenkins missed that last second shot.

“That was as wide open of a shot that we gave up all game,” Ryan said. “It just didn’t happen to go down.”

In the first half Wisconsin’s All-American guard Jordan Taylor struggled with just five points and shooting 2-6.

It didn’t matter though as the rest of the team shot 53 percent.

Vanderbilt’s Brad Tinsley hit a buzzer beating 3-pointer at the end of the half to cut the Badgers lead to 32-31.

Ryan said his team was successful because they don’t rely on one person to score.

“We have unselfish guys who understand what we have here at Wisconsin,” he said. “I think our team has been really good at that.”

Vanderbilt’s Jeffery Taylor, a native of New Mexico, didn’t have a point in the first half, but hit a basket 19 seconds into the second half to give his team it’s first lead of the game.

The Commandeers then fell apart.

They turned the ball over on four straight possessions as Wisconsin rattled off eight straight points to go up 40-33.

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Vanderbilt stayed in the game though and dwindled the Badgers lead to just one with 3:20 to go and went ahead 57-56 from Festus Ezeli’s layup with 2:21 left.

That would be the last time Vanderbilt would score.

Wisconsin responded with an immediate 3-pointer from Jordan Taylor to take the lead for good as Jenkins last second game winning shot failed to go in.

Wisconsin now advances to the Sweet 16 next week to take on No.1 Syracuse.

Jeffrey Taylor said since the end of last year he knew this team would make the Sweet 16.

“Last summer, before the season started we knew we had it coming,” he said. “We had a pretty balanced scoring attack. We felt like we had guys that could put the ball in the hole.”

The Badgers only had eight turnover to Vanderbilt’s 12.

Wisconsin took 33 3-pointers but only made 10 of them and shot 42 percent for the game. Vanderbilt shot 44 percent.

Wisconsin had five players in double figures with Jared Berggren adding 12 to Jordan Taylor’s game high 14. It was Taylor’s 30th game this season with 10 or more points.

Ezeli finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds off the bench for the Commandeers and Jenkins chipped in with 13. Jeffrey Taylor finished with nine, well below his average of 16.3 per game.

Jeffrey Taylor said Wisconsin didn’t play good defense on him, he just wasn’t finding a way to hit his shots.

“I think it was more of a matter of the ball not going in,” he said. “All of my shots pretty much felt good. They were just a little bit short or a little bit too long.”

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