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Monday’s Things To Know: Ethan Happ gets benched, Kansas State stays in first and Virginia keeps winning

Big Ten Basketball Tournament - Quarterfinals

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 02: Ethan Happ #22 of the Wisconsin Badgers reacts in the final minute of the game against the Michigan State Spartans during quarterfinals of the Big Ten Basketball Tournament at Madison Square Garden on March 2, 2018 in New York City.The Michigan State Spartans defeated the Wisconsin Badgers 63-60. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

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There weren’t any wildly surprising results Monday across the country, but there was no shortage of interesting happenings. From an All-American on the bench to the Big 12 race continuing to take shape and beyond, here’s what you need to know from Monday:

ETHAN HAPPS GETS BENCHED IN WISCONSIN VICTORY

Ethan Happ has been awesome this season. He’s been a national player of the year candidate, and is a likely All-American selection. The Wisconsin senior is averaging 18 points, 10 rebounds and five assists per game. That’s rarified statistical air for the 6-foot-10 star.

He’s also often a liability late in close games, and Wisconsin coach Greg Gard implicitly acknowledged that fact by sitting his All-American center for the final 4 minutes, 6 seconds of the Badgers’ 64-58 win over Illinois on Monday.

Gard said it was because Happ was turning the ball over, and Happ did have a tough offensive night with just six points and three giveaways. So when Gard removed him from the game right before the under-4 timeout, it probably was out of frustration of his poor night. That fact that he never came back in, though, points to hole in Happ’s game.

Happ, for all his success, talent and skill, can’t shoot free throws. It’s inexplicable how bad he is at the line, and it’s incredible what a potentially fatal flaw it might be in his game.

As a freshman, he attempted nearly five free throws per game and converted at a not-great-but-not-embarrassing 64.3 percent. That fell to 50 percent as a sophomore, ticked up slightly to 55 percent last year and has now plummeted to a highly-problematic low of 44.5 percent.

That’s led to Hack-A-Happ, and that led to Happ’s benching when the game was tied with Wisconsin desperately needing a win after back-to-back losses before welcoming a surging-but-not-special Illini team to Madison on Monday.

One of the best players in the country watched from the bench as his team closed out a close game at home in a critical spot in the season. Sure, he was having an otherwise rough night, but it’s hard to believe Gard wouldn’t have been more tempted to go back to him if there wasn’t the issue of free throws lingering in the rafters of the Kohl Center.

The question now will be if Gard will resort to this completely-defensible strategy for the rest of the season, including the NCAA tournament. It’s wild that a coach’s best move could be to bench not only his best player, but one of the country’s best players. Happ’s free-throw shooting has sort of forced his hand, though.

KANSAS STATE STAYS OUT FRONT IN BIG 12

Losing to Iowa State at Bramlage Coliseum over the weekend put a major obstacle in Kansas State’s path to winning an outright Big 12 title, but a loss at West Virginia would have totally taken things off the track.

The Wildcats flirted with disaster, but ultimately prevailed in Morgantown, downing Bob Huggins’ undermanned Mountaineers, 65-51, in a game that was tied with under 12 minutes to play.

Ultimately, it was a win for Kansas State, as was having Dean Wade on the floor after an injury scare kept him out of the game for the final 9 minutes against the Cyclones. Wade played 32 minutes and seemed fine, scoring 10 points and grabbing six rebounds.

Bruce Weber’s team is now 10-3 in the Big 12, a game up in the loss column on Kansas, Texas Tech and Iowa State. They have what should be a gimme at home Saturday against Oklahoma State, but then play in just a monster game at Allen Fieldhouse against the Jayhawks. Steal that one and then it’s two home wins and a road win at suddenly-stumbling TCU to claim the first outright Big 12 title for a team that doesn’t reside in Lawrence for the first time since 2004.

VIRGINIA KEEPS ROLLING

If you’re not Duke, you’re not beating Virginia, apparently.

Kyle Guy scored 23, Virginia Tech shot 39.7 percent from the floor and Virginia topped the Hokies, 64-58, in Blacksburg.

It was the 23rd-straight win against non-Blue Devils teams for Virginia, which has lost to Coach K’s team twice this season.

The next to take a crack at Tony Bennett’s machine is Chris Mack’s Louisville, which hosts Virginia on Saturday and will play them again in Charlottesville in the regular-season finale.

Virginia keeps winning this season. It’s basically passe at this point, but it is pretty remarkable how Bennett and Co. keep racking up wins.