Badgers looking to right the ship against Marquette

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MADISON, Wis. – The first month of Wisconsin’s 2017-18 men’s basketball season has been a roller coaster ride for the Badgers (4-6, 1-1 Big Ten) as they break in a new starting rotation and several other role players.

From the outset it was easy to see that this would be a transition year for the Badgers and head coach Greg Gard, who had to replace four multi-year starters after Bronson Koenig, Nigel Hayes, Zak Showalter and Vitto Brown graduated at the end of last year. But the waters have been choppier than expected, with the Badgers winning just two of their last eight games.

There have been silver linings – even if they’ve been hard to see. The Badgers have played one of the toughest schedules in the country to this point, having squared off against four ranked teams already this year. They’re 0-4 in those games, and lost by an average of 4.5 points to No. 15 Xavier, No. 22 Baylor, No. 23 UCLA, and No. 18 Virginia.

The Badgers then split two early Big Ten games, where they were blown out by Ohio State at home and scraped a 64-64 road win over Penn State, before dropping their final non-conference road game of the season to Temple. And with a rivalry game against in-state rival Marquette up next for UW on Saturday morning, the Badgers are looking to see if they can put together a complete performance against a quality team and right their ship before diving in to the rest of Big Ten play in early January.

“They understand we’re very, very close,” head coach Greg Gard said about his team on Thursday after practice. “But they understand we’re not there yet. I don’t think you’re ever satisfied with where you are.”

Part of righting the ship will include finding more consistency on offense to complement junior forward Ethan Happ, who is averaging 16.2 points per game this year as Wisconsin’s lone returning starter. But Wisconsin’s offense has ground to a half when teams have been able to stifle Happ, like in their loss to Temple when the Badgers were held scoreless in the final three and a half minutes of the game as the Owls clawed their way back in front of UW.

Part of that comes with playing so many freshmen and first-year starters – three of Wisconsin’s regulars are in their first season on the court for UW (Forward Aleem Ford and guard Brad Davison and Kobe King), and three more are taking on larger roles after playing off the bench for the Badgers last year (guards D’Mitrik Trice and Brevin Pritzl and forward Khalil Iverson).

Gard seemed confident that consistency would come in time for the Badgers. So if you were expecting the Badgers to start throwing whatever they can at the wall to see if something sticks, don’t get your hopes up. Gard echoed UW athletic director Barry Alvarez and former head coach Bo Ryan when asked how teams need to handle rough patches in a season, saying that he and his team wouldn’t flinch away from the challenges they are facing this year.

“(You) Stick to the plan. You don’t flinch,” Gard said. “You don’t make wholesale changes. You adjust where you need to. Continue to teach and continue to try and get better. I think that’s the main thing that I always learned from (Bo Ryan) – that when the water is a little rough you stick to your course and you keep working.”

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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.