The 15th-ranked Badgers made four of their first six shots to build a lead but needed a second-half surge by Steven Crowl to pull away from Western Michigan in their final nonconference game.

Crowl made his first five shots of the second half, reached 20 points with a drive and dunk and finished with a career-high 25 and eight rebounds in UW’s 76-66 victory at the Kohl Center.

“It felt good to finally hit some shots because I know I’ve been struggling lately, earlier this season with my 3-point shot,” said Crowl, who needed only 13 shots (9 for 13, 3 of 5 from 3-point range) for his 25 points.

An alley-oop from Chucky Hepburn with 6:21 left gave Crowl 22 points, one more than he scored a year and a day earlier against Illinois State. He added a 3-pointer with 2:36 left for a 74-56 Badgers lead and checked out to a loud ovation.

The Badgers (10-2) finished nonconference play 8-2, making it the first time they’ve recorded at least eight out-of-conference victories in consecutive seasons since 2015-16 and 2016-17. They were 9-1 last season.

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Hepburn tied a season best with five assists to go with his 11 points, and the Badgers had their best shooting game of the season at 51.9%.

UW hadn’t played since Dec. 15 because of a canceled game against Grambling State but coach Greg Gard liked what he saw after he gave players five days off. The Badgers didn’t turn the ball over in the second half and opened up an 18-point lead late.

“There’s always going to be some sort of timing issue,” Gard said. “But I thought for the most part, our timing was pretty good.”

Tray Maddox Jr. led Western Michigan (4-9) with 16 points as the Broncos failed to lead in a loss for the fourth straight time.

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Crowl opened the second half with a 3-pointer from the top of the key on the opening possession. He was just getting started.

The junior scored inside two possessions later, then converted a three-point play, went strong to the basket and hit another 3-pointer to open the half 5 for 5.

“We had more of an emphasis on getting the ball down low, whether it was me, Tyler (Wahl), Chucky got down there a couple times,” Crowl said. “So it’s not necessarily just the big guys but once we do get down there it’s about finishing in the paint too.”

Crowl eclipsed his season high (15, set in the last game against Lehigh) with 18 points less than 5½ minutes into the second half.

“Crowl played his butt off,” said Western Michigan coach Dwayne Stephens, a longtime Michigan State assistant. “We made the decision that we were going to make him score rather than double or dig down because they’ve got some really good shooters. Give him credit — he was able to knock down a couple 3s.”

The UW defense was strong early, forcing Western Michigan into three shot clock violations in its first 16 possessions as the Badgers led 22-13 after earlier holding an 11-point advantage.

The Broncos soon found their shot from 3-point range, however, making four over their next seven possessions — two by Lamar Norman Jr. — to pull within 27-25. They shot 36.8% on 3-pointers in the first half and 19 of their 28 shots were from behind the arc.

“I thought we kept them out front of us pretty well and then you force a team to play the percentages of taking those type of shots,” Gard said. “Over the course of 40 minutes, it usually rolls in your favor.”

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Both teams went cold just before the break. UW went into the locker room with only two free throws made over its last seven trips up court. Trailing 29-27, Western Michigan had two chances to take the lead at the break but Maddox missed a pair of 3-pointers as the Broncos made just one of their last nine shots.

It didn’t even take Gard getting into the locker room at halftime for the Badgers to bring up a need to get the ball into the paint.

“We just talked with ourselves and we knew we had to get into the paint more because we fell away from that,” Hepburn said. “And that’s what’s making us win, essentially.”

The Badgers outscored the Broncos 12-2 in the paint in the first half but it could have been a bigger margin if UW had touched the post more.

“We go from having a bigger lead to having a tighter ballgame at halftime,” Gard said. “The second half, I thought we made a concerted effort consistently to play through the paint.”