MADISON, Wis. -- A few days after he logged a season-low nine minutes on the road against Nebraska, Carter Gilmore stayed after practice for 20 minutes to work with head coach Greg Gard, forward Steven Crowl and walk-on Justin Taphorn. The group ran through pick and pop situations.

Gilmore alternated with Crowl, each setting a screen for Taphorn before popping for a three. When Crowl walked away to chat with reporters, Gilmore logged a few more reps with Gard, who used foam sticks as imaginary defenders.

"There it is," Gard said after a solid rep.

Additional work like that isn't out of the ordinary for the junior forward. In fact, the extra work outside of the mandatory time in the gym has been the norm more often than not this past year.

Whenever reporters are granted time to speak with players or coaches, they are allowed in the facility at the tail end of practice. Each time, whether it's on the practice court or on the Kohl Center floor, Gilmore has stayed after to get a few more shots up.

That extra time dates back to the end of last season. With two years under his belt, Gilmore was hoping for more than the complimentary role he had (7.9 minutes per game) as a sophomore.

Living with some of his buddies from high school, Gilmore and his roommates tried to bulk up the old fashioned way. The group committed to doing 100 push ups a day and charted their progress. That extended to a workout at the gym in his apartment and a commitment to work on the court.

"So when the season came, I knew I gave everything I gave to get better this summer," Gilmore said.

By the time the season rolled around, Gilmore bulked up from a playing weight of 215 to 225 pounds.

A family reminder from his parents, Stephanie Gilmore and Brian Gilmore, both of whom were standouts at UW-Platteville, helped nudge Gilmore forward.

"When the going gets tough, you can't just roll over is what we told him," Stephanie Gilmore said. "That's when you have to stand up and fight harder, and if you want something you have to go for it. He's the only one that can control that. No one else can do it for him. That was our conversation - not to feel sorry for yourself or blame anyone else, or point any fingers and to just get to work."

Those words from his parents didn't fall on deaf ears. During the offseason, the players have two separate three-week periods to be home. During that time, Gilmore's workouts were "pretty much almost all day."

"I didn’t have a job or anything, so I would normally go get a lift in the morning come back, then have a workout with my basketball trainer go back to Arrowhead and play in an open gym over there or get a workout in there," Gilmore detailed. "Then it would be coming back to rest for a little bit, take a nap and then get some more some shots up in the driveway with my dad, normally.

"When I was home it was constant work. I knew if I wasn’t going to work, I was going to put in as much work as I could. Then when I got here it was extra work. It was coming in before practice or after practice or in the morning, and sometimes they would have a camp, so I would have to come in at 7 AM. So it was just being harder on myself and doing stuff I didn’t want to do because I knew when I got in a game I was going to have fight through some adversity. Doing that in the offseason and fighting through some workouts that I didn’t want to do that was what I focused on."

In a year where Gard has only been able to go three-deep in the front court with a combination of Tyler Wahl, Crowl and Gilmore, the growth of Gilmore has been a welcomed sight.

Despite being an undersized big at 6-foot-7, he’s transformed himself into a pesky defender in the paint. Against the Wolverines two weeks ago, Gilmore worked in tandem with Crowl to limit Hunter Dickinson to 11 points on the night, including three points in the second half. Overall, Gilmore finished the game with a team-high plus/minus of +14.

"Gilmore never took a shot, doesn’t have any points, but he was invaluable in terms of what he did defensively," Gard said after the game.

"To be honest, at this point I worked so hard I’m just trying to get on the court any way possible," Gilmore said at the team's media day when asked about playing the 4 or 5 in the lineup.

His comfort on the offensive end hasn’t quite caught up yet compared to a high school career that saw him average 26.8 points, 11.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game. But Gilmore has begun to carve out a niche - setting flare screens for the team's shooters and cutting off double teams for enough space to draw a foul or drop in a layup.

"That’s just playing basketball and that’s something that people don't give Carter enough credit for is just his ability to make plays without the ball in his hands," freshman Connor Essegian said. "He sets great screens and he's a guy that goes very unnoticed for those types of things on this team."

"I think I was just trying to adapt to the ‘5’ and play it the way Steve was doing it or the way Tyler was doing it, and I kind of got away from the way I was doing it and the way I played the game," Gilmore said of his growth. "People are comparing me to Mike Wilkinson, that was Coach Gard’s comparison earlier, so just finding a niche that I might play the '5' but I won’t play it exactly how Steve would. Just finding different ways I can impact the game as a ‘5’ is something that’s made me more comfortable.

"It’s just knowing the game a lot of times. I used to have the ball in my hands a lot before coming here and it was just learning how to play without the ball when I got here. Getting guys in more spots to be successful and just watching guys like Draymond Green, who have similar roles as me. I just wasn’t used to that at first.”

The role he's played this season isn't totally new for the junior. In high school, he played on Phenom University, an AAU team that featured Jalen Johnson (NBA), Reece Beekman (Virginia) and Pat Baldwin (NBA) at the time, so he was asked to be the glue guy of the group.

Eight days after his solid outing against Michigan, Gilmore was kneeling at the scorer's table likely a little earlier than Gard would have preferred. Wahl committed a pair of uncharacteristic turnovers, part of what was a sloppy start for the Badgers. Crowl picked up his second foul with 15:28 to go in the first half, which prompted Gilmore to sub in for the seven-footer instead and play the rest of the first half.

Gilmore's first-half line ended with just one rebound in the stat sheet. But he was part of an effort to limit Iowa to 31 percent shooting from the field. His numbers by the end of the game won't jump off the page, either - just four points, two rebounds and an assist. But during his 26 minutes of play, Wisconsin was +12.

"He’s matured off the floor and on the floor to the point where he’s earned the coach’s trust, and defensively he’s more than reliable. He’s stopping guys," assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft said this week. "He knows his scout, he knows his tendencies, he takes pride in being a tremendous defender and it’s not just like he’s a reliable guy, it’s more than that. He’s making an impact and then he can get after the glass and make hustle plays and get into it with big guys. He’s been making a tremendous impact there as well."

A 12-point win over Iowa - the largest margin of victory against a conference opponent - was unfamiliar territory for the Badgers. That kind of environment allowed Gard to pull his starters for a moment to get a reception from the crowd, which was something Gilmore experienced for himself. Standing at the free throw line with 2:45 left to play, the in-state native was met with audible chants of M-V-P.

"It was just pretty crazy," Gilmore said of the moment at the free throw line. "You’re at the line and just having it be a dream of mine to play here. Obviously this season hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to, and I know I could have played better. Our team as a whole could have done better, too, but it’s life in perspective. As a kid, I never would have thought I would have played here and then it was the next step of I didn’t know if I could get a scholarship. Now I was at the free throw line getting MVP chants. It just puts the whole thing in perspective, so it’s just really cool.

"Obviously they’re not chanting MVP because of how I was playing, it’s just kind of the person I am and the person around campus I am, so having people acknowledge was definitely a surreal experience."

Fans inside the Kohl Center sang a completely different tune a season ago. From posts or comments on Twitter or chatter in the arena, it wasn't hard to find someone voicing their displeasure with his role in the rotation.

"The biggest thing for me was I so afraid of failure and I was afraid of the things I couldn’t do on the basketball court, the stuff I couldn’t do well in the weight room," Gilmore said before the season. "I was just afraid of like, 'oh, I can’t do this as well as other guys or I can’t do this as well other guys in the weight room' and just being OK with not being as good at stuff. Working on things that I saw as a flaw in my personal life and in the weight room and in basketball. Just not being afraid to fail helped me work on every aspect.

"I think in the game last year it was a bit mental of I would get in there and I would play fine in practice. And you see all those comments on Twitter and you say don’t look at it, but it is hard to come in there and see that stuff. I also realized I had to stop making excuses - you can say it’s mental but I just knew when it came down to it that when you put in the work and you put in the time and effort and you do it a thousand times, that’ll take away the mental aspect."

Thursday night in the home finale, Gilmore will likely be asked to contribute 15 or more minutes against Purdue and play a part in trying to slow down Zach Edey. Stephanie Gilmore joked that "all the work this summer doesn't make him 7-foot-4." Gilmore jokingly added that "we’ll see but hopefully the double will be coming fast and we’ll be alright."

It will be the first meeting between the two programs this season. In the first matchup a season ago, Gilmore played what was then a career-high 19 minutes with Chris Vogt, Wahl and Crowl all dealing with foul trouble. The second time around, in a game that will be remembered for the late game heroics from Chucky Hepburn, he was relegated to a role as a spectator on the bench the entire game.

Gilmore's role in the rotation tonight won't come out of a necessity for Gard to dig further down his bench for minutes in relief of his primary bigs. Instead, it will be as a result of his development into a solid player that's carved out a significant role on the team.

"There is no magic sauce to becoming a good player," Gard said. "You have to work and you have to work hard and work more, and it never ends, and that’s what I think on the outside gets lost. Good players don’t just fall out of the sky.

"They have to really develop themselves and do some much and commit so much more to it outside of the coach’s fingerprints the time we get with them. That’s where it started with Carter when he took that personal dedication and said I’m going to take ownership of my success or lack thereof.

"And he’s done an awesome job of it. I’ve told him many times - you’ve improved in ways that we envisioned, but it’s a credit to him that he’s taken the effort and put forth the effort for him to make it happen."

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