Whatever the Origin, Wisconsin Found the Title Recipe Early

MADISON, Wis. – Once a question of intrigue directed at Wisconsin basketball has long since turned into a broken record, right up there with tailback Braelon Allen’s age or tight end Jake Ferguson’s lineage.

They heard it again Tuesday night, with Big Ten championship hats on their heads, red title t-shirts on over their jerseys, and the winning net around Greg Gard’s next.

How did this happen, and when did they know?

“I think I said three months ago, you might want to come and watch this team,” Gard said. “I think they are really good, and they are only going to get better, and they are fun to watch. (Tuesday) everybody turned out in full force, and they (the players) gave them a heck of a show.”

The answers to those two simple questions vary depending on the recipient of them. Stories have been and will be written for a long time about how a team picked 10th in the preseason by a contingent of conference writers, some pegging them as low as 12th, won a share of the Big Ten championship with a 70-67 victory over No.8 Purdue.

In a sea of students, fans, and confetti that swallowed the floor was a team that improved to 18-4 in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games, basking in all of it.

Some players, like senior Brad Davison, the only one of seven seniors who decided to return this season, believed he saw the makings of a championship-quality roster in the summer. Gard has been on record saying to his coaching peers he felt his team would surprise outsiders if a group that included 12 underclassmen and eight newcomers handled the adversity of the season. He got his answer quickly.

Wisconsin trailed by 16 points against Texas A&M in the opening game of the Maui Invitational in late November. By halftime, the Badgers led by one. Two days later, Wisconsin won the tournament by beating Houston and St. Mary’s, two schools currently ranked No.14 and No.19 in this week’s AP poll. Sophomore Johnny Davis – the tournament MVP who is among the favorites for national player of the year – points to this moment as the jumping-off point for the team.

Looking back, Gard believed those tournament games taught the group to stick to the plan when things go haywire early in a 40-minute game.

“Don’t panic if it doesn’t go well, and then we get back to being us,” Gard said, a philosophy UW used well early the next month when it came back from 22 points down to beat Indiana. “A lot of that has to do with both ends (of the floor). A lot of what you do on offense impacts your defense.

“You can talk about staying the course and trusting everything and keep chipping away. If you don’t have results with it, obviously there will be some doubts set in. They were able to prove that you keep playing.”

The comeback wins and triumphs over ranked teams built confidence, but a 63-58 home loss to Providence in the season's third game served as big of importance. Wisconsin played that game without Davis and was manhandled in the low post. But even at its bleakest, trailing by 13 with 6:13 remaining, Gard didn’t see his team fold. Instead, they battled and cut the deficit down to two possessions in the final minute

“The fight, the resolve that I saw early, that was good,” Gard said. “We pointed out right after the game (that) you can’t lose that. We’ll keep building off that and that was a good sign early.”

It was the only game UW lost by six points or less. Starting with the Maui wins, the Badgers have won 15 consecutive wins in games decided by two possessions or less. It’s the first time since the introduction of the 3-point line in the 1986-87 season that a Division I team has such a long win streak in those pressure games.

Purdue head coach Matt Painter said the reasoning behind it was the Badgers play the same way every possession, no matter the situation or score.

It’s why UW never panicked when Purdue erased an 11-point lead or tightened the screws multiple times in the final two minutes.

“Some people call it pressure, but pressure is something you aren’t prepared for,” Davison said. “Throughout the course of the year, even the offseason, we were preparing for these moments. We put a lot of time in to put us in a really great spot coming into the game where we didn’t feel a lot of pressure. I think the pressure was on Purdue.

“For us, it was one big opportunity to win the Big Ten in front of our fans and make a statement.”

There’s no question COVID restrictions played a major factor in the disjointedness of last year’s team, which was limited with off-the-court interactions and activities. A closer return to normal this season included team meals, movie nights, and pods of players simply wanting to be together. A byproduct of those experiences is trust and accountability.

“There are coach coached teams and player coached teams,” Gard said. “When you can have that ownership of a player-coached team, this group for as young as they are have taken that on faster than probably anybody would have expected.”

With the title trophy firmly in their grasp, the Badgers could finally let the cat out of the bag. When 28 Big Ten reporters collectively decided they were the 10th-best team in the league, did they laugh it off? Angry? Insulted? Was it printed and pinned to the bulletin board?

Mostly it led to a shrug and the group simply going to work, preparing for a moment like they had Tuesday night.

“We didn’t look too much into it,” forward Steven Crowl said. “Going all the way back to the summer, we knew what we had in the gym. We just stuck our heads down. You have seen what’s happened. We saw we could beat anyone in the country.”

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