Badgers enduring puzzling 3-point trend

MADISON, Wis. No matter how much he might like to try, Bo Ryan can't step on the court and swish home3-point shots for his team. All the Wisconsin coach can do is give his players the tools in practice to have confidence to take, and hopefully make, 3-pointers in key situations. But a disturbing and somewhat inexplicable trend has developed for the Badgers as the season progresses. For all the attempts in practice, Wisconsin simply cannot make enough 3-pointers in games played at the Kohl Center. The cold, hard numbers aren't pretty.At home, Wisconsin is shooting 32.9 percent from 3-point range (103 for 313). Yet on the road, with unfamiliar backdrops and hostile environments, Wisconsin is shooting 40.0 percent from behind the arc (76 for 190).How can this be explained? "It's crazy," Ryan said at his weekly press conference on Monday. "And if there was an answer that was easily obtainable, I think we would have had it by now. As slow as I am, we'd have had it by now. "Junior high, high school, Division III, at UW (Milwaukee), I've never had a team get into those kind of phases. It's just something in practice you just keep working on in your shooting drills."The disparity is eyebrow raising to be sure. And during Wisconsin's 58-52 loss against Ohio State on Saturday, the Badgers' long-range shooting struggles at home continued. Wisconsin hit just 5 of 27 3-point attempts and was equally bad in each half. The Badgers made 2 of 14 tries in the first half and 3 of 13 attempts in the second half. "We penetrated to the rim and kicked for some wide open 3s," Ryan said. "You have to take what a team gives you. They weren't giving us much to the rim. If you're going to get those kinds of looks, you've got to hit some of them in order to survive, and we did not do that in the last game. "We haven't done that in a couple other (games). The only thing you can do is get ready for the next one. But I've never experienced this."Badgers forward Mike Bruesewitz was among the players left shaking their heads following another perplexing shooting performance. "Everybody was getting open looks," Bruesewitz said on Saturday after shooting 2 for 6 from downtown. "We've got to knock them down. We did a good job moving the ball. Jordan (Taylor) did a great job of putting us in position. He did a good job getting rid of the ball when he needed to. We've just got to knock down shots when we are open."Wisconsin's lack of shooting touch from long range at home has cost the team dearly this season. During four home losses against Marquette, Iowa, Michigan State and Ohio State, the Badgers have shot a paltry 18 for 96 from 3-point range (18.8 percent).Not coincidentally, this season marks the first time in Ryan's 11-year tenure at Wisconsin that the Badgers have lost four games at home. Three home games still remain on the schedule, against Penn State, Minnesota and Illinois.Overall, Wisconsin has a 91.6 winning percentage (163-15) at home under Ryan. In conference play, the Badgers had been 78-6 at the Kohl Center during Ryan's first 10 seasons. This year, they're just 3-3."Records are funny," Ryan said. "There are teams in the Big Ten that have gone through seasons where they played better away than they did at home. It's happened. I think of all the years of it happening, this year wouldn't surprise me. There are people that are losing at home that don't normally lose at home besides us."Wisconsin (18-5, 7-4 in the Big Ten), which had its six-game winning streak snapped on Saturday, is tied for third place in the conference with Michigan, two games in the loss column behind first-place Ohio State. The Badgers travel to face Minnesota (17-7, 5-6) on Thursday."It's not over," Taylor said on Saturday. "The race is still there. Obviously it's a big disappointment that we had a chance to fight back and squandered it away. There's no time to mope or feel sorry for each other."Perhaps the Badgers will benefit from playing on the road, where they are 7-2. And if there is another positive to take from the puzzling shooting percentages, it's this: There are no home games played in the NCAA Tournament. Follow Jesse Temple on Twitter.