KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wisconsin senior center Jared Berggren has no problem with the way Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson plays the game.Berggren, who is the second-leading scorer on the Wisconsin roster, called Henderson a great shooter during Thursday’s open locker room session with the media.
“He’s a great scorer. He can come off screens and if you give him an inch of space, he’s firing it up there and knocking them down,” Berggren said. “It’s obviously worked for them. They’re a good team. They just went out and won their conference tournament. They’re as hot as any team in the country. We’re going to have a tremendous challenge out there tomorrow.”
Berggren laughed when Henderson was described as playing with a pro wrestler mentality.
“I’ve seen some of the stuff he’s done. He’s drawing some attention and he makes a story and that’s fine. He’s obviously a guy that plays with a lot of fire and emotion and I think it helps the team,” Berggren said. “I think (Rebels) kind of feed off that. He seems to be an emotional leader for them.
“We’re not going to get too caught up in some of the things that he’s doing, whether he’s talking or clapping in people’s faces or doing his Landshark thing,” Berggren said. “That’s fine if that’s the way he wants to play if he wants to have some fun with it. We have to make sure that he works for his shot and not let him get rolling. I don’t think he’s doing a lot of this stuff after his missing.”
Berggren added that there were similar guys in the Big Ten that can shoot like Henderson including Michigan’s Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. He said that Indiana also had numerous shooters like Henderson, while Michigan State’s Gary Harris, Berggren said, was also very similar if you gave him an inch to shoot.
“There are a lot of guys that we’ve faced that are similar but I think he can take it to a whole new level where it seems to him where there are no bad shots because he’s capable of making them,” Berggren said. “We just have to make sure we make him work for his shots and not let him get any easy ones and make him make all the tough ones.”
For more from the Badgers, see Friday’s EAGLE. (March 21, 2013)
