OKLAHOMA CITY ? Wisconsin played its style of basketball Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament — low-scoring, defensively tough and, in the end, triumphant.

The sixth-seeded Badgers now prepare for Bucknell after topping 11th-seeded Northern Iowa, 57-52, at the Ford Center. The Bison stunned Kansas University, 64-63, Friday night.

Wisconsin (23-8) hit 11 three-pointers — the ninth time this season it made 10 or more threes — and played gritty defense to force UNI into low-percentage shots.

Wisconsin has made seven straight NCAA Tournaments playing this style — never pretty, but usually pretty successful.

“We certainly had our hands full,” Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said. “But that’s the kind of game that will always make you better.”

Wisconsin jumped to a 26-10 lead behind six three-pointers early, but the Badgers cooled off, and UNI stormed back.

Eventually, the Panthers made it a three-point game at 51-48, but then failed to capitalize on four straight possessions, allowing Wisconsin to escape without ever trailing.

“We were just trying to hold them to one shot and make them put the ball on the floor,” Alando Tucker said.

Offensively, the Badgers relied on the three-ball to keep UNI a safe distance away, since the Panthers focused on stopping the Badgers’ top two scorers, forwards Tucker and Mike Wilkinson. The two combined to score 13 points, about half of their combined season average.

Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan watches his team defeat Northern Iowa. With their 57-52 victory Friday in Oklahoma City, the Badgers advanced to Sunday's NCAA Tournament second-round game.

But it didn’t matter because of the long-range shooting — and it wasn’t so much how many the Badgers hit, but when they hit them.

It seemed every time UNI was in a position to take the momentum in the second half, the Badgers set the Panthers back three more points.

Sharif Chambliss had two such treys after halftime and finished with 15 points on five three-pointers.

“It was a great confidence-booster for him,” Tucker said. “He has been struggling, but with great shooters, they’ll eventually come out of their slumps. He really relaxed and let it come to him.”

The 57 points actually were par for the Wisconsin course. In the 15 NCAA Tournament games it has played since 1999, the Badgers have eclipsed 70 points just three times — all in first-round games against lower seeds.

To say the Badgers will want to slow down the Bison on Sunday would have a definite ring of truth to it.

“They are one of the hardest teams in the country to come back on,” UNI coach Greg McDermott said. “For us to score 42 points against the Wisconsin defense in the last 25 minutes of the game meant we were doing something right. It doesn’t happen very often.”