Five Things Wisconsin Basketball Must Accomplish This Offseason

MADISON, Wis. – There is no such thing as an insignificant offseason, no matter where a team falls on the championship spectrum. After falling well short of championship aspirations, Wisconsin basketball has entered one of its biggest offseasons in years.

A year after winning a share of the Big Ten regular season and being the No.9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Wisconsin badly regressed after injuries and youth exposed the inexperience during the season's second half. They finished 11th in the Big Ten standings, missed the NCAA Tournament for only the second time since 1998, and ended the season with a colossal collapse that was its own doing.

Wisconsin had weaknesses last season, but a consensus All-American helped cover up those issues. Without him this season, those flaws turned to warts in a season full of frustrating setbacks – close losses, misfiring offense, and a lack of top-end talent that was all too much to overcome.

Wisconsin’s deep run in the NIT was making the season look slightly better until a horrendous second half against eventual tournament champion North Texas sent the Badgers into the offseason with only 13 points scored in the final 20 minutes. It was a fitting cap to a second half of a season full of mistakes in which the Badgers lost 13 of their final 22 games and plummeted from a No.14 ranking in the AP poll.

As Wisconsin basketball transitions into the offseason, here are some of the main things that need to be addressed over the next several weeks and months.

The Badgers weren’t an overly talented team last season (evident by them being picked 10th in the preseason writer’s poll), but what made them champions was having two uber-confident leaders in Johnny Davis and Brad Davison who could be counted on in crunch time or when things had the potential to go sideways.

Davis wasn’t the most vocal rah-rah player, but the sophomore did his talking with his athleticism and knack for scoring. Three examples come to mind involving Davis’ willingness to go for the kill: his 37-point masterpiece at No.3 Purdue when he scored 27 in the second half and made the team’s last three field goals; his 25 points on 8-for-11 shooting in a road win at No.17 Michigan State, scoring four times in the second half when the Spartans were within one possession; and his 30 points and 12 rebounds at Indiana when he scored the team’s final 13 points on drives to the rim, pull-up jumpers or on free throws after drawing fouls.

It was clear that UW had nobody close to Davis this season in terms of someone having that killer scoring instinct. Chucky Hepburn tried to be that player in crunch time, but the sophomore rarely drove toward contact at the rim and his step-back jumper was spotty at best. UW eventually designed plays for others in crunch time but those didn’t find success either.

Look no further than Tuesday’s loss as an example of a lack of scoring punch. Not only did the Badgers make one field goal in the final 13:10 (none in the final 9:07), they passed between three players – Hepburn, Steven Crowl, and Tyler Wahl – on the final possession and nobody took a shot, resulting in a turnover and the season is over.

While not nearly as athletically gifted as Davis, Davison was the veteran presence who could help coach, guide, and teach a team with 12 underclassmen what needed to be done to have success. Davison was an incredibly smart player who could diagnose and read situations to put himself in the right positions to get open shots and draw fouls. He also was a consummate teammate, someone who could say the right thing to struggling players to lift their spirits or rally the team in a moment of adversity.

Wahl was lauded by his teammates for stepping up in his leadership, but the senior still looked uncomfortable in the role and doesn’t come off as a rah-rah player. If he decides to return for his extra season, he’ll need to push himself to be more vocal. Max Klesmit was reserved at the beginning, being a new player in a new program, but found his voice over the last month of the season and backed up his words with his best basketball of the season … until scoring two points on 1-for-6 from the floor in the finale.

Klesmit entering his first senior season next year (he could return with his COVID year in 24-25) will give UW a leadership presence but can he average between 13 and 15 points per game? It’s unlikely the Badgers are going to land an alpha player or personality in the transfer portal, so fulfilling this wish is going to have to be a collective effort.

Wisconsin won last season despite ranking last in the Big Ten in field goal percentage (42.2) and 3-point percentage (30.6). The inability to hit shots and generate offense became their undoing in March when they shot a season-worst 29.8 percent from the field and 9.1 percent from the perimeter (2-for-22) in a second-round loss against Iowa State.

This season was worse. Wisconsin shot 41.4 percent from the field, averaged 65.3 points per game, and scored 106.9 points per 100 possessions, the latter number ranking them 140th in the country via Kenpom (the lowest for UW since the site started tracking stats in 2002).

And much like last year’s March exit, Wisconsin’s season ended this year with the Badgers not scoring a point on their final 12 possessions that covered the final 8+ minutes in a 56-54 loss to eventual NIT champion North Texas.

Part of the problem was the Badgers’ roster was designed as a guard-oriented team and lacked depth in the low post to be able to provide a consistent punch. UW consistently played with only three forwards and reserve forward Carter Gilmore was used more for his defensive acumen than a scoring pop. The Badgers shot 34.3 percent from the perimeter as a team (a marked improvement from last year’s 30.6 percent), but the unit shot just 46.3 percent from two-point range (tied for 322nd out of 363 D-1 teams), the lowest for UW since the 2000-01 season.

Furthermore, the entire rotation needs to get tougher and show a willingness to drive into the lane and draw contact. Wisconsin finished the season with 14.3 free throws attempted per game, its lowest per-game average since at least 1968. Only Wahl attempted more than 90 free throws (131), the first time that’s happened in a full season at UW since 2000.

While the season 69.1 free throw percentage (lowest in five years) put them 11th in the conference and 273rd nationally, the NIT run showed the group is capable of making them after finishing with an 80.8 percentage (59-for-73) in four tournament games. UW also embraced ball security by finishing second in the country with 8.6 turnovers per game.

The Badgers could play so in sync and fluid in one half but look like baby giraffes trying to walk in the other. Greg Gard nicknamed them “Team Drama,” but “Team Ulcer” was more apt.

Wisconsin played 23 games decided by five points or less or went to overtime. The Badgers finished 13-10 in those games. Finishing the season with a +1.7 scoring margin and failing to beat a Power-Five opponent by more than 12 all year was a sign that the team has a razor-thin margin for error. An inefficient offense was a big reason why.

With the graduation of Davis and Davison, Hepburn became Wisconsin’s most seasoned guard, a lot to handle for a sophomore with only one year of the college experience. Knowing that he’d be counted on to help pick up the absence of Davis’ scoring and Davison’s leadership, Hepburn looked like someone who tried to do too much and ended up crumbling under the pressure.

The step-back jumper – his go-to shot - was either hot or vastly cold for him throughout the season. Hepburn only had seven games of his 35 starts where he hit over 45 percent of his shots (minimum seven attempts) but nine games where he shot under 30 percent (five coming since February 14). Late-game situations rarely panned out for him, and there were a lot of them considering the number of close games.

Hepburn led the team in scoring at 12.2 ppg and in three-point shooting at 40.5 percent (the first starting guard to shoot 40 percent in a season since 2015), and his 1.9 assist-to-turnover ratio was solid, but his 37.7 percent shooting from the field was the worst for a starting guard at Wisconsin in a decade (Traevon Jackson shot 37.2 in 12-13).

To be fair, Hepburn wasn’t supposed to do it alone this season at the point guard spot. The Badgers were hopeful that senior Jahcobi Neath would recover from offseason knee surgery and sophomore Lorne Bowman would be healthy enough to rejoin the team. Neither happened. UW added Kamari McGee in the transfer portal, but the sophomore from Green Bay needed time to get up to speed and didn’t start factoring into the rotation until mid-February. That meant Hepburn had to shoulder things on his own during the rough patches.

Still, missing his final seven shots and not scoring in the final 28:16 with the season on the line is an eye-opener.

Adding another ball handler in the portal or getting McGee better up to speed would be ideal, but there’s no question that Hepburn must be better from his shot selection to his decision making.

Gard has had a front row seat to view some of Wisconsin’s best big men play the pick-and-pop game within Wisconsin’s offense over the last 20+ years, a list that includes players like Jared Berggren, Brian Butch, Keaton Nankivil, Mike Wilkinson, and 2015 national player of the year Frank Kaminsky.

Crowl? Gard believes the soon-to-be senior could be up there, too.

“I think he can be right there with those guys that are on the Mount Rushmore of stretch bigs that we’ve had here in the last two decades,” Gard said after Crowl dazzled with a career-high 36 points and nine rebounds against Bradley on March 14. “Getting him to believe that has been the biggest thing. Tonight’s a big step in that. He played how I envisioned that he can play.”

Scoring just eight points on nine shots in Wisconsin’s elimination game in the Big Ten Tournament (effectively ending its chance at an NCAA bid), Crowl was called out by Gard for a “heavy-legged” performance. Against Bradley, Crowl looked like a different player. His points matched Michael Finley’s 1994 performance against Missouri for the most points by a UW player in the postseason, and Crowl scored his on an efficient 16 shots. The offense ran through him in the low post early, resulting in three hookshot jumpers in the paint in five possessions, and opened opportunities for him on the perimeter to hit a career-high five three-pointers on seven attempts.

The rest of the NIT run wasn’t perfect. Crowl was limited because of foul trouble against Liberty and finished with nine points and 10 rebounds against the length of Oregon. He had 10 points and eight rebounds against North Texas but attempted only one free throw and appeared tentative in the paint.

Crowl is an exceptional passer (his 86 assists were most by a UW big since Ethan Happ in 2019), but the Badgers need him to be more selfish and aggressive, especially in the low post. His numbers took a decent leap from year one to year two as a starter (increasing his ppg by 3.3 and his rebounds by 2.5), and it’s paramount that Crowl continues to push his numbers forward to give UW a better low-post presence.

I wrote last March that Wisconsin’s roster needed more depth entering the 2022-23 season. While the portal gave UW a proven starter in Klesmit and some young point guard depth in McGee, UW not being able to replace the departure of Ben Carlson, Matthew Mors, and Chris Vogt with any size or experience in the frontcourt hurt them, especially in the three games Wahl was out and the games that followed his return when he clearly wasn’t near 100 percent.

The second half of the season was evidence Wisconsin needs to find more scorers and shooters, no matter what size they come in. Doing so would massively help a bench that underachieved in the scoring department. While Gard has stated the roles of bench players go beyond scoring, it’s hard to deny that the reserves in the rotation lacked a scoring punch.

In 35 games, the bench averaged 11.4 points per game. After freshman Connor Essegian was moved to the starting lineup, however, the number dipped to 7.8 points in 19 games.

With over 1,100 names currently in the portal, and increasing daily, the Badgers (and every other college team) will have options to fill their roster. UW has reportedly been in touch with Temple guard Khalif Battle, Illinois-Chicago guard Jace Carter, Wofford guard Jackson Paveletzke, Lehigh wing Evan Taylor, and Ball State forward Payton Sparks. The staff also Wyoming guard Noah Reynolds on a visit and sit well in his recruitment.

UW already saw junior guard Jordan Davis (5.1 pts, 3.5 rbds) enter the portal Thursday, likely looking for larger playing time after losing his starting job in January. More players leaving could be coming, so the staff must make sure that the portal is a net positive between now and mid-May. Gard said at his final press conference that his team never fractured during the adversity and that they “gave us every single thing they have had.” That may be true, but it was obvious with Wisconsin's consistent inability to separate from teams that everything they had often wasn’t enough.

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