Notes: Greg Gard Readies Wisconsin for Exhibition Trip to France

MADISON, Wis. – Trying to indoctrinate six new players into his program, as well as replace two guards who have signed professional contracts, Wisconsin was looking for any opportunity to have extra practices, more exhibition games, or accelerate the roster’s team building to help get ahead of the curve.

Getting any one of those options would have been good for head coach Greg Gard, but all three? That’s just extra powdered sugar on the beignet.

Flying out tonight for a 10-day exhibition trip, Wisconsin will play four exhibition games around France (Paris on August 10, Lyon on August 12 and August 13, and Nice on August 16), as well as experience sight-seeing and local culture tours from the Eiffel Tower, to Normandy, and the French Riviera.

“It’ll be good for the off-the-court development, chemistry, cohesion, which is equally as important as the four games we’re going to play,” Gard told BadgerBlitz.com Saturday. “We’re looking forward to it. I know it’ll be good to see a lot of different guys in different roles and see how everyone responds.”

The NCAA allows schools to take an exhibition trip out of the country every four years. The Badgers last took a trip in 2017 when it visited Australia and New Zealand, as well as previous trips to Italy (2006) and Canada (2013).

With the worst of COVID hopefully in the past, and countries around the world starting to open their borders, Wisconsin started mapping out potential destinations and, from early in the process, France was the clear top choice from the ease of travel and sightseeing opportunities.

The exhibition trip allowed Wisconsin to have 10 extra practices, which Gard used to focus more on the offensive end.

“I think your workload increases in these type of years (with an exhibition trip) where we’re obviously doing more,” Gard said. “It’s more intense, more team-oriented things than we typically do during the summer. A lot of the offseason is individual-focused. With the length of the regular season, you are always vigilant and cautious about the wear and tear and the length of what we’re going to walk into from September through March. We can’t turn June and July into October with how we train and practice because it will lead to diminishing returns.”

With only Jahcobi Neath (knee surgery) unavailable for the trip, Gard can work several players in at several positions. Two he’ll keep a close eye on are transfer guards Max Klesmit and Kamari McGee. Klesmit – a junior – finished second on Wofford’s team in scoring (14.9) by shooting 44.6 percent from the field, 34 percent from three, and 83.7 percent from the free-throw line. McGee – a sophomore –was Green Bay’s leading scorer averaging 11.6 points and 1.9 assists per game.

“You can definitely tell they’ve had experience,” Gard said of Klesmit and McGee. “The fact that they’ve been in a college program and played college games, you can tell that compared to the freshmen who are in right now. I think they’ve both been good in their own right. They’ve done some good things, and this will be good for them these next 10 days how they respond and react in actual game action. There will be a lot of learning on the fly and I’m going to play a lot of guys. I’ve got a lot to learn.”

One new player Gard already has a decent scouting report on is his son, Isaac, who is joining the program as a walk-on after graduating from Oregon High School.

“He’s holding his own,” Gard said. “The opportunity (to have him walk-on) presented itself in the spring, and my assistant coaches were not going to let me not do it. They were adamant. It’s been awesome. All the coaches that I’ve talked to that have had sons on their team have said it’s 10,000-to-1 in terms of the positives of it and the experiences you get to share because of it.”

Fans knew a good portion of Wisconsin’s nonconference schedule prior to Friday’s full release, a slate of games that saw the Badgers scheduled to play in the Brew City Battle against Stanford at American Family Field on November 11, three games in the Bahamas in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament on Thanksgiving week, a road game at Marquette on December 3, and a home contest against Wake Forest on November 29 in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. The rest of the games don’t move the needle quite as much.

Wisconsin opens the 2022-23 season at home against South Dakota (November 7) and will also host Green Bay (Nov.15), Lehigh (Dec.15), Grambling State (Dec.23), and Western Michigan (Dec.30). Of that grouping, only South Dakota had a winning record last season.

In reality, it’s a good schedule for a younger team, playing three games in the state before the meat of the nonconference schedule (Atlantis, Wake Forest, Marquette, and two Big Ten games) and finishing with three teams that were a combined 33-62 a year ago.

“So much of our schedule you can’t control now,” Gard said. “I think the game at American Family Field is going to be awesome. To be the first college basketball game in there, and the time that has been spent by a lot of people over the last 10-15 years to make this thing come together, I think it’s going to be a unique, special night. It will have a regional final, Final Four type of feel to it.”

Gard doesn’t believe the Big Ten is done with expansion, not with the amount of movement that has occurred between conferences over the last few seasons. With that mindset, it was hard to predict how the Big Ten will schedule basketball road trips for teams to UCLA and USC when the two join the league for the 2024-25 season, only that it makes logistical sense that schools would play both in one trip to minimize travel.

“And it should be the same for when they travel to the Midwest and the East,” Gard said, referring to mini two-game series for the Bruins and Trojans. “Maybe we go back to having travel partners where we are playing Thursday and Saturday in doubleheaders. Maybe we can pair Maryland and Rutgers together or Penn State? I am sure that will be discussed, and TV will dictate a lot of that, and rightfully so. I think it’s a positive for our league. We’re in changing time and it’s good for our league to stay ahead of the curve.”

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