Madison — Greg Gard spoke with reporters Wednesday afternoon at the Badgers annual media day. BadgerBlitz.com has the key takeaways:

Wisconsin returns its entire starting five from a season ago. There's also continuity on the bench, as Carter Gilmore elected to run it back as well. Gard was asked what the process of bringing back Steven Crowl, Max Klesmit and Gilmore entailed this offseason.

"We talked about it long before the last couple of days. It was even last spring, with all of them. 'Hey, you have the option to have two years left.' And they told me they wanna come back, they wanna be here. Unless they have a golden ticket somewhere; if they're lottery picks, I'll shove them out the door," he said. "But they understand the value of the experience here, and when you have three guys like that that bring this much experience to the table, it'll be great for the young guys."

Wisconsin's continuity should certainly be stronger this season, as of the major contributors from last year, the team only lost Jordan Davis. There's unfinished business to attend to in Madison.

The Badgers have a pair of true freshman bigs in Nolan Winter and Gus Yalden, both of whom can't get up to speed fast enough. Wisconsin is in desperate need of front court depth, so it's a possibility we may see one or both of them at some point this season.

"It's early. They both have done good things. Gus missed pretty much all of last week in contact situations, but he's been back Monday and Tuesday and has been really good. And Nolan, he obviously caught our attention this summer. I think a little further along than we had envisioned. But they're both different in how they play and what they bring to the table. I'm not bashful to play young guys, I think I've shown that. So just keep competing, just keep getting better every day. They're both a little different. Gus' moxie and IQ. Nolan's IQ is really good too, but he's seven feet, Gus is 6-foot-8, 6-foot-9. Nolan I think can play some at the four. He's shown how he can move and his versatility, so I think that's part of the depth I alluded to in the opening statement."

Winter and Yalden clearly have to wait their turn behind Crowl and Wahl, but it sounds like if they're ready to help the team, they'll see the court sooner rather than later.

One of the main storylines surrounding the hyped true freshman Yalden is his physical transformation and the weight he lost over the summer.

"He changed his eating habits too. I know he's cut a lot of the junk food and sugars out when I talked to him about it. And that was really on his own decision. That was gonna be something, we would help him get in shape once he got here, but he jumped on it before he ever got here. So now it's a matter of, he's lost that weight, now how do we add the functional weight and add the strength. I think that's the one thing...getting him stronger while at the same time keeping him lighter of foot and more mobile as he's made himself as he reshaped his body."

Yalden's strengths, namely his footwork and his passing, require him to be light on his feet. It's encouraging to see the true freshman taking his own initiative so early in his career.

Wisconsin played at one of the slowest paces in the nation last season. Multiple players have discussed an emphasis on tempo this offseason, and Gard was asked what exactly he's looking for from the pace of his team.

"Well, you always wanna play faster to get easy baskets, but the other team in the other jersey sometimes has a different idea. So, yes, if we can get something easy in transition, we've got an experienced point guard now, we've got some depth behind him. Our bigs are pretty mobile in terms of running the floor. As I tell all of them, just be responsible with the ball. The pace of play is something that maybe gets over-exaggerated in terms of a number, it's still about the efficiency of our offense. You look back at our 2015 team, which averaged 1.29 points-per-possession, it's the slowest team we've ever had here," Gard said. "I'm more concerned with (points-per-possession). We were 1.06 last year, we need to be one point one something...Our efficiency has to go up, and if that's a piece of making our efficiency go up, I'm all for it."

Gard tends to favor points-per-possession as a stat that tells him the most about his team. It's also clear he's not thinking about the pace of play nearly as much as it may seem.

Gard was asked what changes were made to his team's offseason routine after a disappointing season in which the Badgers failed to make the NCAA tournament and for the most part treaded water in the Big Ten.

"We changed how we approached the spring. We went all weight room, nothing instructional on the court because A, we had a long season from June to the foreign trip last year and playing until the end of March. I felt the weight room was a big piece of us taking another step, specifically having all these guys back. And then through the summer with conditioning, more intense things in the summer that maybe we'd held back with until the fall. And then the fall, we've added some extra things on the hill and then we'll do some extra things in practice too, maybe above and beyond what we've ever done in the past. It's part conditioning, it's part mentally taking another step. I told them that day that they're ready to be challenged. You've gotta be cautious if you do that with a group that's too young, not ready for it. This group is ready. The schedule is gonna challenge them, but we have to challenge them every day in practice too and push them and get them out of their comfort zone. And they've done a good job of doing that with each other, but the staff has done a good job of pushing the bar too."

As mentioned, the Badgers return their entire starting five from a season ago. That's not to say their spots are simply locked into place; Gard stressed that he's aiming to foster as much competition as possible.

"I don't think I have to say much, they see what the competition level is in practice. Returning starter, that's last year. I haven't named any starters this year, so it's open season on minutes. They go after it every day, and I have my list that I keep to myself of observations and evaluations from each day. There's movement in that list every day. Some guys drop, some guys move up, someone that didn't appear a week ago might appear on the list...It's a good thing, because we've got competition in practice at all positions. When you have that competition around you, you can't get complacent, you can't half-step. You don't wanna have a bad day or somebody's gonna pass you. That's where we want it."

The Badgers do appear deeper than they were a year ago, which ultimately bodes well. However, there's still a lot to be figured out in the way of minutes and rotations.

Chucky Hepburn has slimmed down to a listed 195 pounds, and by all accounts, he's taken it upon himself to work on his body this offseason.

"I think as guys go through their career, they kinda find through experimentation, some of it's success and some of it's failure, what's right for them and their body. (Hepburn) really made the move towards this over a year ago," Gard said. "Chucky has changed his consumption. We can all probably take lessons from how he eats. He wanted to slim down, trim down, become leaner, lower body fat percentage, higher muscle mass. What you weigh doesn't always necessarily lead to success. So more sometimes isn't better...Chucky, I never see him eating anything but salads."

Connor Essegian earned minutes essentially right away as a true freshman before supplanting Davis as a starter. Whereas Hepburn's focus was slimming down, the lean Essegian focused on getting stronger.

"Connor was a little bit different. I think his experience last year showed him, 'I better get in the weight room, and I better add some muscle mass to my frame.' All those things that the experience taught him, even though he had a good freshman year, there was times when he didn't have the outcome that he wanted to, whether it was in the paint or the endurance component of the duration of the season."

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