Wisconsin basketball has 'a long ways to go' after preseason
Two exhibitions showcased the growing pains of a Wisconsin basketball roster in transition
Madison, WI - UW-Platteville opened the scoring inside the Kohl Center on Wednesday night with a 7-0 run, putting Wisconsin basketball in an early deficit. Eventually, the Wisconsin Badgers rallied for a 14-0 run of their own to dispose of the Pioneers by a comfortable 69-53 margin. Still, the opening minutes encapsulated the growing pains many college basketball programs face in the early going in the transfer portal era, and why Badgers head coach Greg Gard wants the rules changed to fix it.
“I think it was just a product of, we’re older,” Jeff Gard, head coach of NCAA Division III UW-Platteville and younger brother of Badgers head coach Greg Gard, said of his team’s opening scoring streak. “I mean, no offense, but when our guys have played together, and I had four guys on the floor that—there were five guys that were out there that had been in sync.”
Although the Pioneers lost three starters from a team that made last year’s NCAA Tournament, Jeff backfilled those spots with players already on his roster who have spent years practicing together. Greg, on the other hand, lost a trio of starters to graduation, plus the first two players off his bench. Of those seven roles, the Badgers filled six through the transfer portal.
Currently, NCAA rules limit teams to two exhibition contests against other teams. That “transient nature” of high-major college basketball is why Greg, who, in August, began a four-year term on the NCAA Division I men’s basketball Playing Rules Subcommittee, is advocating for programs to be allowed for “two more [at] minimum” preseason games.
Greg said the level of competition is different, “any time you can play against a team that’s preparing for a season,” and “I just think you learn so much more… and the more you can get to experiment and learn,” the better.
Regardless of the final score, Greg knows his team has “a long ways to go,” but that is “the way it should be for October,” he said. “I hope we wouldn’t be scratching, touching our head on the ceiling right now. We better have a ways to go, and we do. That’s why you play these games.”
Roster turnover causes record turnovers
Wisconsin turned the ball over less often than all but 15 teams in the country last season. As impressively as the Badgers took care of the ball a year ago, even that was below their usual standard. It was only the second time in seven seasons that UW finished outside the top-15.
While last season was slightly substandard in offensive turnovers for Wisconsin, Wednesday night was downright subpar for any high-major college basketball program. The Badgers turned the ball over 15 times to the Pioneers.
“Part of it is, yes, playing together and becoming more accustomed and having that synergy develop,” Greg said of those miscues.
When, in an exhibition against a DIII opponent, a team commits more turnovers than it did in all but two games a season ago, and four more turnovers than it did against any opponent outside of a power conference, it cannot all be chalked up to the lack of shared experience.
“Some of it is also fundamental things,” Greg admitted. “Of playing too fast in the moment, or when we did attack, not playing off two feet, not being strong with the ball, not chinning the ball. Things that are obviously correctable.”
Greg took responsibility for some of the turnovers. During a stretch in which Wisconsin committed five turnovers in six possessions and six in eight, the Badgers experimented with a four-guard lineup. In a minute and 40 seconds, the lineup of Jack Janicki, Andrew Rohde, Hayden Jones, John Blackwell, and Nolan Winter scored zero points and turned the ball over twice.
“A couple of them are on me because I went with a smaller lineup at one point with Blackwell at power forward, and I hadn’t don’t done that, hadn’t practiced it,” Greg said. “We had all the time—we had one fly out of bounds on that. And it was that, everybody didin’t know where everybody else was. We were all sorts and out of shape within the offense. So, it’s, we’ll dissect all 15 of them.”
Nobody had a more difficult time taking care of the ball than Austin Rapp. The sophomore forward scored 14 points, collected seven rebounds, and added two assists, but he was responsible for seven turnovers in the process. If it were not an exhibition, Rapp would have set a new career-high in turnovers, eclipsing the two times he committed five in a game with the Portland Pilots.
Wisconsin basketball combines defense and gritty scoring late
Whether it was the early 7-0 outburst by the Pioneers or their 16-4 run midway through the second half, UW-Platteville put some blemishes on Wisconsin’s defensive resume. But unlike last week when the Oklahoma Sooners scored throughout the night, totaling 84 points, the Badgers clamped down on defense when they needed to against the Pioneers.
Wisconsin forced UW-Platteville into 14 turnovers of their own, with some miscues coming in bunches. To ensure the Badgers held a relatively comforting nine-point lead at the half, they forced three turnovers on the Pioneers’ final four possessions of the frame.
In the Badgers’ game-sealing 14-0 run, the Pioneers missed five consecutive shots and committed two turnovers. After UW-Platteville snapped that initial scoring drought, Wisconsin again held the Pioneers scoreless on four straight possessions, including a pair of turnovers.
“I was happy with how we turned up the defensive pressure late in the first half,” said Greg. “And then, I finally found the combination that was connected enough, and together enough, interms of covering up for each other in the back half of that second half that we were able to get enough stops.”
That combination of Winter, Rapp, Blackwell, Nick Boyd, and Jack Janicki defended well throughout that 14-0 run, despite poor three-point shooting, showing what Wisconsin could be when it all comes together. Those five combined to make four of nine shots from the field during that stretch, but missed all four from beyond the arc. Wisconsin led the Big Ten in made threes a season ago.
“As players get more entrenched in our profile, they understand that you’re—you’re not gonna shoot 18 for 25 from three every night,” Greg said. “There’s going to be a six for 25 night,” or, as there was against UW-Platteville, "there might be a three for 25 night. But if you defend, rebound, and take care of the ball, it’ll give you a chance.”
As the head coach of the Badgers pointed out, it was not a perfect night. Still it was far from disastrous. The 16-point margin matches that of the final score last year’s Wisconsin basketball team managed in its exhibition matchup with DIII UW-River Falls. In fact, that UW-River Falls team, against a Badgers squad that later advanced to the Big Ten Tournament championship game and earned a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament, came within the same two-point margin in the second half as the Pioneers did against this season’s Badgers on Wednesday night.
“One thing they continue to learn is how the attention to detail every single posession is—it’s a non-negotiable if you want to be really, really good,” Greg said. “I can’t let them get away with something, um, the saying is, 'you never accept anything in victory that you wouldn’t accept in defeat.’ So, anything that—every possession matters. No matter who you’re playing, no matter what the score is, play the game the right way, and you’ll develop good habits. And then, when we get to, you know, down the road, hopefully, those habits come back to really help us.”
Thank you for visiting BadgerBreakaway.com — a top-50 rising Substack sports publication. With your support, we are quickly becoming a leading independent source for news, analysis, and intel on the Wisconsin Badgers hockey and basketball teams.