While running a squeaky-clean program, the Wisconsin Badgers head coach has won the third-most games in the Big Ten since taking the top job, and his players consistently graduate.
By Peter Cameron, BADGER STRIPES
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});The shrill cries of social media whiners ring out from Superior to Green Bay to Racine, Platteville, La Crosse and Eau Claire.
They were right! A dreadful February for the Wisconsin Badgers Men’s Basketball team proves it!
UW is currently 10-7 in the conference, tied for fourth of the 14 teams in the Big Ten. They have nonconference wins over Virginia and top-5 Marquette.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Last year, in a down year, the team won 20 total games.
That’s a program whose coach you want to fire?
Proud men’s basketball programs Michigan and Ohio State sit in dead last of the Big Ten standings. Maryland, which has a relatively-recent national title, is down there too, as is Indiana, which has fired coach after coach since Bobby Knight was forced out.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});And people want to move on from Greg Gard, whose team has fallen all the way to fourth?
The season isn’t even over yet.
Since becoming head coach in the middle of the 2015-2016 season, Gard has won the third-most games in the Big Ten. What was an 11- and 12-team conference during Bo Ryan’s tenure is now a 14-team league. And next year it will become an 18-team conference, with deep-pocketed programs like UCLA, USC and Oregon joining.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Sure, he hasn’t kept up with Ryan’s legendary run of top-four finishes, but he’s come close in a bigger and tougher conference.
He’s also won a share of a conference title, in 2019-2020, with no players on the first or second All-Big Ten Teams. That’s a coaching feat that had never been accomplished.
And this year, he won his 100th Big Ten game, needing only 162 games to get there. Only five coaches in the modern era did that faster, all of them Hall of Famers: Bobby Knight, Ryan, Thad Matta, Tom Izzo and Gene Keady.
That’s a coach you want to fire?
The two-time Big Ten Coach of the Year doesn’t just win at a high rate. His players also graduate, and not just with bachelor’s degrees. Many also finish their time at Wisconsin with master’s degrees.
And UW has higher academic standards than most other programs, which limits them in recruiting and has cost them players in the past. That increases the difficulty of the job considerably.
Gard is coaching and developing true student-athletes, a term that is a joke across most of the NCAA. That’s something the whole state of Wisconsin can admire.
The players
For a while, a narrative out there was his players were leaving in droves. That storyline really took off when native son Kobe King left the program in the middle of the 2019-2020 season, and then six seniors mostly decided to play elsewhere or leave the program rather than come back for a fifth COVID year in 2021-2022.
But King showed himself to be unreliable, committing to Nebraska, then changing his mind. He had a couple nice seasons playing for Valparaiso in low Division 1 basketball, but who cares?
As for the seniors who were critical of Gard in that infamously recorded-and-shared-with-the-press meeting (by Alando Tucker no doubt), it appears they were turned against the head coach by Tucker, a new assistant coach and former star player who reportedly ran a shadow campaign against his head coach, even going so far as to ask then-Athletic Director Barry Alvarez to make him head coach.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Since Tucker left the program after two seasons, the seniors have all decided to come back for their fifth COVID seasons – Wahl this year, and Crowl, Klesmit and Carter Gilmore have all announced their return next year as well. Wahl is having his best season as a Badger, shooting 56% from the floor.
Other players have left since then, but really only those who weren’t able to succeed in the system. They haven’t had much success elsewhere.
And Gard has found winners in the transfer portal — Klesmit, backup point guard Kamari McGee and scoring wing A.J. Storr — to replace them.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Good players want to play for Gard.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});This year
The February collapse, after starting the month ranked 6th nationally and sitting atop the Big Ten standings, has been extremely disappointing and Gard deserves some of the blame. The defense has been frustratingly lousy for most of this season, and it’s really tough watching legitimately bad offensive teams like Penn State and Indiana light us up.
Some of that is Gard and his staff’s fault. But that’s also the cost of getting a badly-needed athletic scorer like Storr — who so many “fans” have been screeching for — and immediately inserting him into the starting lineup. While struggling to score last year, an undermanned Badger team was able to stay in every game it was healthy with its defense.
Storr has been an ok defender, but the Badgers’ man-to-man team defense must play as a unit, and it’s only as strong as their weakest link. Tyler Wahl is in his fifth year of playing in that system now, Steven Crowl in his fourth, Chucky Hepburn in his third and Max Klesmit in his second. It takes time to learn.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});There’s still time to right the ship this season and make a deep March run.
UW has been unlucky in March
The knock on Gard is that his teams “haven’t won in March.”
They made Sweet 16s his first two seasons. Some stupidly say “those weren’t his players,” but apparently they forget he was Ryan’s top assistant coach and was in charge of recruiting.
Those two Sweet 16 teams were both unlucky. A loss to Notre Dame was the result of an uncalled foul on Nigel Hayes, who was blown up during an end-of-game press by the Fighting Irish as the Badgers clung to a tiny lead.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});The next year, Florida’s Chris Chiozza hit a miraculous, buzzer-beating, running three to eliminate UW by two points.
Injuries to King and starting point guard D’Mitrik Trice, in a year the back up had transferred elsewhere in search of more minutes, led to a rare losing season in 2017-2018, but Gard and staff still had them playing good basketball in March. They just ran out of runway.
After a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten, the Badgers were blown out in the first round of the tournament in 2018-2019 as a #5 seed to Oregon, a #12 seed. No excuses there. It happens.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});But a white-hot UW squad didn’t get a chance in 2020, as the tournament was canceled due to the pandemic. A damn shame.
In 2020-2021, the season Tucker led an apparent revolt, Gard still had the team playing great in March, and they blew out North Carolina in the first round. Unfortunately, they ran into #1 seeded Baylor in the second round, a team that destroyed everyone on its way to a national title.
And after a superb season in which they won the conference behind superman Johnny Davis’ All-American year, UW suffered another second round exit in 2022. But they lost point guard Hepburn to injury early in a game his playmaking skills were desperately needed.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Should Gard’s teams do better in March? Of course.
But he has won at UW at a ridiculous rate, second only to his Hall of Fame mentor. Gard has the unenviable task of following up a legend, and many “fans” seem to think legends grow on trees. We replaced a legend with a pretty good one. Maybe he’ll grow into a legend too.
Eventually Gard’s teams will break through in March, as Ryan’s teams did at the end of his tenure.
https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4317615640364969 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Badger Stripes is a sports news organization that provides in-depth coverage of Wisconsin athletics. Follow us on Facebook.
Badger Stripes 