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Greg Gard fills his bench with assistant coach Dean Oliver

Wisconsin has found its replacement for Lamont Paris, and it's right in time for the live recruiting evaluation period, which begins Friday.

Thursday afternoon, the school announced that Dean Oliver, an All-Big Ten guard who was most recently on staff at Illinois State (2015-17), will join Greg Gard's bench at UW.

uwbadgers.com
uwbadgers.com

"We are really excited to welcome Dean back to the Big Ten and the Wisconsin basketball family," Gard said in a release. "I have been impressed with him over the years and after getting to know him better through this process, it became easy to see why he has been so successful in the past as a player and most recently as a coach.

"Everyone I talked to about Dean had the utmost respect for his leadership, teaching abilities and passion for helping student-athletes. He has a tremendous reputation for building relationships, has great rapport with players and excels in player development, particularly with guards. It's rare to find a coach with his combination of professional playing experience and coaching ability and I have no doubt he is the right fit for our program."

According to the release, Oliver, who earned All-Big Ten honors at Iowa after his sophomore, junior and senior seasons, became just the third player in conference history to finish his career with more than 1,500 points, 500 assists and 200 steals. He played professionally for nine years before becoming an assistant coach at North Dakota (2012-14).

"I am extremely honored and excited to be joining the men's basketball staff at the University of Wisconsin," Oliver said in the same release. "It is truly a dream to coach at such a prestigious, storied Big Ten program. I can't wait to get to work with the young nucleus of players as well as the exciting incoming recruits. I am equally as excited to work with and learn from Coach Gard and staff.

"I want to thank Coach (Barry) Alvarez, Coach Gard and the entire UW staff for welcoming me in. Go Badgers!"

Oliver, who helped guide Illinois State to a 68-34 overall record, a share of the 2017 Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title and two National Invitation Tournament bids (2015 and 2017), according to the release, is expected to work with UW's guards.

Wisconsin lost backcourt starters Bronson Koening and Zak Showalter to graduation in addition to reserve Jordan Hill, who elected to transfer earlier this month. Oliver will inherit freshmen guards D'Mitrik Trice and Brevin Pritzl, along with 2017 signees Brad Davison and Kobe King.

A native of Mason City, Iowa, Oliver could help Wisconsin's recruiting efforts in the Midwest - possibly in Ohio where Paris had a great deal of success for the Badgers.

Finally, Oliver has a connection to Illinois State graduate transfer MiKyle McIntosh, who announced he will enter the NBA Draft but not hire an agent. The 6-foot-7, 234-pound forward could pull his name out and transfer to another school this summer. UW currently has two available scholarships for the upcoming season.

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