MADISON, Wis. - After studying the seed lines, Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard understood why his team was being sent on a plane to Denver instead of a bus to Milwaukee.

There's no time to gripe, so he feels that the Badgers playing an early tip time on Thursday instead of waiting until Friday is exactly what his mature group needs.

"Quick turn, go play," Gard said Tuesday before the third-seeded Badgers departed for Denver to begin preparations for their NCAA Tournament first-round game against No.14 Montana.

"Don't dwell on it. We go to the championship game, didn't get in done, now let's go on to next. We get to play in another one. We just focus on a four-team, two-game tournament. You have to win Thursday to get to Saturday."

Wisconsin earned the No.12 overall seed in the field, the sixth time since 2007 the Badgers have been seeded that high. Prolonged runs in the national tournament have been elusive under Gard, who hasn't led a team to the second weekend of the tournament since 2017.

"We were a little banged up and a little tired going out there," senior Steven Crowl said.

Sitting around at the hotel all morning and afternoon with a roster less than 100 percent combined to Wisconsin digging itself a 15-4 hole after 11 possessions and never recovering, especially when it committed four turnovers on its first five possessions.

"We didn't come out functioning like we should of and could of," Gard said.

That was the story of Sunday's title game. Wisconsin shot 22.1 percent and 17.9 percent from three-point range in a 59-53 loss to Michigan. While Gard is against micromanaging shots during the game, a film review showed the Badgers attempting shots with too much time remaining on the shot clock, back dribbling into attempts, or driving into shots with a 7-footer in their face.

The fact that Wisconsin only had eight assists on 15 buckets also confirmed that the Badgers pounded the ball into spots and did not play off two feet off the paint instead of making the ball move and getting quality shots within the rhythm of the offense.

"I think we took some bad shots, more bad shots than normal, specifically early and from three," Gard said. "Shots we didn't have to take, contested shots, and Michigan did a really good job of contesting us. We settled too much at times. We missed some good shots, too. We had some wide-open looks, even late. I thought wholistically the story of that, we tried to do too much at the rim when they were jump walling. We need to play off two feet and spray it better and more."

As for a hangover effect or a repeat of last year's performance, the Badgers are 3-1 this season playing with one or no days off between games, a sign of the depth on the roster.

"I think this team is built a little differently in terms of being able to have quick turnarounds," Gard said. "We have more quality depth at a lot of possessions. You just learn from it and move on."

Knowing the odds were high that it would have to prepare for an unfamiliar opponent, the Wisconsin coaching staff got to work on Montana the minute the brackets were released. Gard said he had watched "two or three" Montana games by Sunday night to get a gauge on the Grizzlies.

Wisconsin last played the program in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament, a 73-49 victory in Albuquerque, N.M.

Two years later, current head coach Travis DeCuire took over the program and led the program to six 20-win seasons and three NCAA Tournament appearances.

From a common opponent standpoint, the programs share few similarities. Montana was 0-4 in Quad-1 games and lost by 31 to Oregon and 35 to Tennessee in games played without its full roster. Montana swept the season series from Montana State, winning by a combined 11 points. UW beat the Bobcats, 79-67, on November 7.

One thing evident from watching game tape is that the Grizzlies are a lot like the Badgers in terms of their consistency in running their schemes and execution.

"When you're in this time of year, you have to trust who you are," Gard said. "We're not going to change a whole lot. They're not going to change a whole lot. You trust your preparation, what has got you to this point and the success you've had."

One thing Gard didn't need to scout was playing at altitude, which the Badgers aren't accustomed to in the Big Ten. Strength and conditioning coach Jim Snider spent 12 seasons working with the Wisconsin men's and women's hockey teams and had more than a few experiences with the Badgers on road trips to Colorado College and Denver.

Spending Monday off the court recovering from the weekend, Wisconsin had a light practice before traveling to Denver Tuesday and will start to ramp up its preparation on Wednesday.

"I trusted him to put a lot of the preparation in his hands," Gard said of Snider. "Literally, we were in the locker room, even before the Selection Show not knowing where we were going, but he already had a plan together of how we were going to approach this week."