Greg Gard Preaches Patience with Wisconsin's Roster Building

MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin’s end-of-the-year banquet at the Kohl Center Wednesday had the same setup as previous incarnations. The only noticeable difference was the Badgers didn’t have to set up nearly as many chairs for the rostered players as they have had to in the past.

In the 33 days that have elapsed since the conclusion of Wisconsin’s 2023-24 season, the Badgers lost nearly 45 percent of their roster, a shocking number considering the program saw only one senior – graduate forward Tyler Wahl – exhaust their eligibility.

“Here’s the first thing everybody needs to understand, we have to move out of how things were and walk away from yesteryear because we are in a completely different era,” head coach Greg Gard said prior to the event. “It’s something that we saw coming, quite frankly, for two, three, four years as this was coming down the pipe. Anybody that has been shocked, stunned, surprised by anything … it’s kind of like the folks who turn on the TV March 10 and question what happens in the tournament, meaning you haven’t paid attention to the rest of the year.

“If you are surprised by what has happened to the transfer portal and NIL and where it has grown to, you haven’t paid attention and you are just waking up today.”

After successfully keeping its roster intact entering the 2024 season, Wisconsin felt the sting of the exodus that has plagued college basketball since Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and pay-for-play deals have become commonplace instead of backroom dealings.

To recap, Wisconsin has had seven players enter the portal, including last year’s leading scorer in wing A.J. Storr and three-year-starting point guard Chucky Hepburn. UW also didn’t renew the contract of assistant coach Dean Oliver and saw director of recruiting and scouting Kyle Blackbourn take a head coaching job at Rockhurst College.

Some departures weren’t surprising. Gard knew walk-ons Ross Candelino, Luke Haertle, and Isaac Lindsey (South Dakota State) were planning on leaving in search for more playing time.

Freshman reserve forward Gus Yalden and sophomore guard Connor Essegian also entered the portal in search for fresh starts following frank conversations with Gard about the work they needed to put in over the offseason to move up the depth chart.

“I just think he also needed to find a place where he was going to play,” Gard said of Yalden. “I was really honest with him, that it was his choice but here is where you are on the depth chart and it’s your decision to make. That’s what he decided is he wanted to find a place to play. We’ve fielded a lot of calls for him, but ultimately, it’s his decision on where he decides to go.”

“His struggles were well documented,” Gard said of Essegian, who committed to Nebraska. “In terms of when we did talk the day we got back from the Brooklyn, we laid out where we felt he needed to improve in order to get back to where he was as a freshman, but competition with John (Blackwell) coming in and A.J. coming here and Max (Klesmit) getting better, it was a battle for minutes. If you’re going to come back, here’s what you’re going to have to do to recommit yourself. He was able to find a spot where he wanted to go.”

Storr was one of the more sought-after players in the portal market and will reportedly receive a high six-figure deal with Kansas. Hepburn’s departure likely stunned fans the most, but Gard recognized during their phone call that Hepburn wanted to try and cash in for his final season of eligibility. He did that by committing to a Louisville program on Thursday that is 12-52 in its last two seasons.

“I’m not mad at anybody, specifically Chucky and A.J.,” Gard said. “If anybody in their right mind told any of you guys that you could go triple your income by taking a different job, you’d do it in a heartbeat no questions asked. Did we all not want to see them go? Yeah, of course. I love those two kids. They were great for us, but I understand the landscape we’re in. I would tell my kid probably the same thing if I was in that position because the earning-power window is really small. When they have those types of opportunities in front of them, it’s really hard to say no. I don’t begrudge them at all for that.”

While the Badgers have yet to replace any of the departed players with the portal set to close after May 1, Gard remains upbeat and realistic that UW’s roster will continue to evolve over the next several weeks and months, unlikely to be set in stone until September.

In addition to the returning players and the two scholarship high school seniors – Daniel Freitag and Jack Robison – who will join the program, the Badgers have focused on the portal in addition to possibly adding a high school prospect in the spring signing period that goes until May 15 and have started to look at prospects internationally, led by the efforts of special assistant to the head coach Kirk Penney.

Gard also plans on restructuring his staff’s roles and titles to better tackle an ever-changing climate.

“I’ve taken it from a standpoint you take the box of the puzzle, you open it upside down, throw the piece over and you put it back together in today’s climate,” Gard said. “That’s not only your roster construction and how we’ve looked at that specifically, but it’s also my staff construction. That’s something I’ve been contemplating and envisioning for almost a year. Where this was going, we’re going to have to adapt and adjust and change, and we’re in the process of doing that.

“Fortunately, I think we’re not caught off guard. I’ve seen this coming and have been playing with these ideas in my head to stay at the cutting edge of this, we really have to shake it up and change how we look at things because the world has changed, the game has changed, how we operate has changed and obviously, you are seeing that publicly every day with the NIL and the portal. Even internally, this whole operation has really changed a lot.

“I want to make sure we get it right. There’s a ton of options right now. Options grow by the day. Our war room board changes every two hours as people go into the portal and out of the portal and we learn information on it. It’s a whole new world.”

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