Notebook: Rebounding, complete games and Davis' offensive progression

Wisconsin added yet another bullet point to the list of struggles it's had to address this season.

During a 3-4 stretch where the Badgers alternated wins and losses, shooting woes and stagnant stretches on the offensive end were at the top of the list. After a recent loss to Michigan, rebounding was added to the catalog.

"I thought the back-breaking part were the offensive rebounds," head coach Greg Gard said following the defeat. "They only had four in the second half but they turned into nine points."

"Coach came in the locker room and talked about four key offensive rebounds they got that led to nine points," D'Mitrik Trice added postgame. "And in a close game, nine points is a lot."

Immediately after a game, Gard almost always tells reporters that he needs to look through the tape in order to see what went wrong. Sunday evening was no different.

"I'll have to go through the tape and look through the angles," Gard said. "He (Hunter Dickinson) has 15 (rebounds) and we end up with two zeros with guys (Nate Reuvers and Micah Potter) who are matched up with him. Sometimes it's more than positioning or angles."

Potter, who played 19 minutes against Michigan, agreed with his head coach.

"Attack the ball," Potter said Tuesday afternoon. "In my personal opinion, boxing out is like 25 percent of rebounding. You can box out all you want but if you don’t attack the ball and go get it, you’re never going to get a rebound.

“Boxing out is 25 percent of rebounding and the other 75 percent is tracking the ball, being able to read where the ball is going to come off the rim and then attacking it. If you just try to box out and take someone out of the game, you’re going to get zero rebounds.”

Heading into a meeting with No. 11 Iowa, led by player of the year frontrunner Luka Garza, the emphasis will be no different.

"It’s not only with Garza. The young (Keegan) Murray kid, I think Keegan, he gets the glass really well. (Jack) Nunge gets the ball really well. (Connor) McCaffery gets the ball really well," Gard said. "That’s always a point of emphasis and just watching the film, we watched technique and we didn’t do well in terms of driving with our hips and not using our upper body, really being physical with our lower body. A lot of credit goes to them but some of it was our not doing what we need to do in terms of a physicality and technique standpoint.”

Potter and Reuvers are two of the better players on this team. And though the Badgers had both in the starting lineup to open the season, today's game doesn't allow for that, according to Gard.

"It’s largely predicated on how the other team is playing, specifically their four. We’re not going to see a lot of teams that play a traditional two-big lineup," Gard said. "Analytically and all the things we looked at, the numbers showed us that was not in our best interest. Whether it was points per possession, defensive points per possession, rebounding percentage - everything pointed to where we were better in a more mobile lineup. There may be a situation coming down the road. Now if Iowa plays Garza and Nunge together, that could be a rare opportunity where playing the two together could function.”

Gard made the switch to insert Tyler Wahl into the starting lineup before UW's contest against Rutgers, which features Ron Harper Jr. (6-foot-6, and 245 pounds) as its starting power forward.

"In addition to the eye test and specifically what we had to guard defensively with so many mobile fours," Gard said. "Like we just saw with (Isaiah) Livers and I think it started against Rutgers with Harper, it’s more the norm than the exception.

"Fifteen, 20 years ago you can get away with two bigs because you had to guard two bigs. Not now with the slide screens, the pick and pops and, specifically, the mobility of the other fours. It puts a lot of pressure on that other big that probably, technically, is not a four. They’re both more comfortable as a five.”

Outside of simply knocking down open looks, it's hard not to notice when Wisconsin's offense gets stagnant. Breaking down a defender and getting to the basket is a way to solve that problem, and Jonathan Davis is arguably the Badgers' best option to do that.

Davis recorded another solid game with an 11-point outing against Michigan, the third time in four contests the true freshman has finished in double figures. Davis scored eight of the Badgers' 20 second-half points, going 4-of-6 while the rest of the team shot 3-of-22 in the second half.

“He’s getting there. I don’t think he's there completely," Gard said. "He’s handled a lot. I think there are days where maybe he feels like he’s drinking out of a firehose because he’s getting a lot thrown at him as a freshman. He’s gotten a lot of experience but there is more stuff in our playbook now for him than there was 40 days ago.

"Some of that happens organically. One of them he got late in the game, he ended up being like the third option on a ball screen on the wing with (Aleem) Ford and Trice. He was able to play off a screen.”

Davis, 6-foot-5 and 196 pounds, has already shown glimpses into the future. But for now, Gard likes how he is progressing.

"We’ve continued to encourage him to be aggressive and understand when you can and when you can’t, and he’s getting more and more confident in that," Gard said. "It’s a unique situation - he’s a freshman playing with a lot of upperclassmen and there’s sometimes a tendency to defer. We’ve tried to encourage that if it’s right and you feel good about it, you need to be aggressive and keep attacking because he has a great ability to be able to do that.

"I don’t want to force-feed him and put him in a position he’s not comfortable with. And so far I think we’ve found the right mix of him continuing to take what he’s ready for at that point in time. We want him to continue to do more and put him in those positions when it’s appropriate.”

After a stretch of games where the Badgers struggled to connect on good looks, the first half against Michigan looked promising. UW shot 53.8 percent from the field and 5-of-7 from three-point range.

But, unfortunately for Wisconsin, there are two halves to each contest. The Badgers shot 25 percent from the field in the second half and just 1-for-12 from deep.

"Showed in the first half that we can do it. We can be a really good, special team," Trice said after the loss. "Just have to be able to put together a full 40 minutes - can't be 30 or 35 minutes if we want to be able to beat these really good teams."

"Have to play a full 40 minutes and, obviously, we're not at the point where we're doing that," Gard added.

"Do you have two or three hours?" Gard sarcastically said when asked what's preventing the team from putting together a complete 40 minutes.

While Wisconsin's second-half woes against Michigan put its inconsistencies on full display, the issue has plagued the group for much of the season.

"It’s something we’ve been looking for all year, trying to become more consistent. I don’t think it’s something that’s come and gone, I think it’s something that we’ve been looking for all year and even going back to non-conference," Gard said. "Even though we were winning games and sometimes winning by large margins - beating some good teams - the consistency was always something we were searching for. To be in sync, specifically offensively, I think that’s what we’ve really been searching for and we haven’t found that rhythm consistently.

"We’ve done it in streaks. I really thought Louisville was probably the one where we clicked the best, but we haven’t been able to hit that rhythm for a litany of reasons. Like I said, you don’t have two hours for me to go through things, but we’re searching and we’re working at it."

For Reuvers and Potter, the two seniors pointed to the same thing: staying locked in mentally.

“Mental toughness. It’s as simple as that," Potter said. "I’m not even going to say it because it’s just an excuse. No excuse, you just have to stay mentally tough regardless of the circumstances, you have to stay aggressive, you have to stay locked in, you have to stay physically locked in or your mentality affects your body. Mentally, we have to stay locked in for a full 40 minutes.”

"I don’t know, you could say being locked in. Wanting it more, playing hard," Reuvers added. "There’s a lot of games where it’s a couple of possessions. Two that come to mind are the Marquette game, where we lost on the tip-in and Michigan, who just beat us like this. Win those last two minutes, and that’s something we didn’t do this game.

"It’s not fun but we’d rather have it happen now than later here as we get down the stretch in March.”