Hot-shooting Pritzl leads Badgers to victory in opener of five-game tour Down Under

The University of Wisconsin men's basketball team opened its five-game exhibition tour Down Under with an 85-75 victory over the New Zealand Breakers on Tuesday night in Auckland, New Zealand.

Brevin Pritzl, who will be a redshirt sophomore this year, hit 7 of 9 three-pointers and finished with 28 points to lead four Badgers in double-figure scoring.

"It was good to finally be back on our feet playing basketball again," Pritzl said. "Today was just about doing the things that we do in practice and executing them.

"When shots are open you have to take them and we just had a really good team flow to find shots."

In front of fellow sharpshooter and UW Hall of Famer Kirk Penney, Pritzl kept the Breakers off-balance all night, hitting triples in the half-court set, off double-teams and even in transition. Penney, an Auckland native and member of the Breakers, did not participate in the game but came away impressed with Pritzl.

 All-American Ethan Happ added a double-double for the Badgers with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Freshman Brad Davison had a solid debut for UW with 13 points, four rebounds, two assists and three steals. Khalil Iverson rounded up the double-digit scorers for UW with 10 points.

"I thought we learned a lot on the fly," coach Greg Gard said. "I thought from the first quarter to second quarter and then third quarter to fourth quarter we got better with the ball. Our turnovers went down every quarter, but also defensively I think we figured some things out.

"We were much better at communicating, better in transition and then we made some shots late to pull away in the last couple minutes."

The Badgers will have a rematch with the Breakers at 1:30 a.m. Thursday (Central) in Tauranga, New Zealand. 

After that, UW's tour will move to Australia with games against the Hawthorn Magic on Saturday, Melbourne United on Sunday and Sydney Kings next Tuesday.