Postgame Pulse: Greg Gard, Nolan Winter speak after BYU loss
The Wisconsin basketball forward issued some self-criticism, saying the Badgers 'can't be mentally weak'
Salt Lake City, UT — Greg Gard and Nolan Winter did not mince words after Wisconsin basketball suffered its worst loss by margin of defeat in over seven years. The junior forward said his head coach’s message after the 98-70 defeat at the hands of the BYU Cougars, “wasn’t pretty. And rightfully so.”
Winter went on to say it was not so much the “technical” aspects of the game, the Xs and Os on the court, that contributed to the defeat, “rather than that, I think it was more internally, I think it was out mindset, our aggressiveness, our physicality.”
The Lakeville, Minnesota native noted that UW should have been prepared to bring those intangibles against an opponent that ended Wisconsin’s season less than eight months earlier.
“Knowing what BYU brought last year and what they were gonna bring this year, what we needed to bring as a team, and we didn’t do that,” said Winter. “Obviously, shots didn’t go in, but we still scored 70 points, so I don’t think offense is an issue right now. I think it’s more of a defensive thing, more of an internal thing within each of us just having that physicality every night.”
“I didn’t like how we responded from a toughness standpoint,” added Gard. “We got a little—we got a little out of character. We did some undisciplined things on both ends of the floor.”
Those “undisciplined things,” particularly on defense, ultimately doomed Wisconsin. BYU shot 29 free throws, making 22, the most attempts and makes from the line the Badgers have allowed since last December.
Despite the setback, it is only November. Wisconsin struggled in its first test against a high-major opponent and, as Gard said previously, has “a long ways to go.”
“It’s a learning [opportunity], and we’re going to learn a lot from this,” the two-time Big Ten head coach of the year said of the loss. “You know, when you get knocked around like this and kicked around, it’s going to be what we have to fix. There’s technical things, but then, how do we respond from a mental standpoint and grow?
“We have to get better and that’s why you play these type of games against these type of teams.”
Hear full post-game remarks from Gard and Winter in the video below:
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