Will these Badgers succumb to similar fate as previous Gard-led teams?

MADISON — No. 6 Wisconsin has reached the halfway mark in its Big Ten schedule.

Despite Thursday’s brutal loss to Nebraska, the Badgers are 8-2 in the Big Ten and sit just half-a-game behind Purdue, which they’ll play Sunday.

More importantly, this feels like it could be the best Badger team in years. They’re led by a clear star, surrounded by a perfect blend of dependable veterans, with the safety of a deep and flexible bench.

When watching this team compared to others during the Greg Gard era, their current record shouldn’t come as a surprise.

However, we’ve learned during Gard’s tenure that the final 10 games of conference play are not only far more important than the first 10, but they’ve often been when promising Badger teams lose their spark.

After the recent win at home against Michigan State, which pushed Wisconsin’s conference record to 8-1, Gard was quick to shake off any sense of satisfaction.

“We’ve talked about that [Big Ten standing] and they understand that we’re not even halfway through the league schedule yet, and they understand that you can’t let success change you,” Gard said.

“Our job is to keep challenging them and pointing out the things we have to get better at, and hold them accountable to it. You keep reminding them about, ‘If you wanna do what you said you wanna do, and what we’ve talked about, you gotta continue to get better. You can’t get complacent.’”

Any smart coach would have this attitude. But with Gard, it might not be mere coach-speak, given the history of his teams falling apart in the home stretch of the season.

In his first full season as the head coach in 2016-17, they sat atop the Big Ten schedule at 10-1 and were ranked No. 7 in the country in early February. Then, they proceeded to finish the season 2-5 and were placed in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 8 seed

That team actually ended up making the Sweet 16 — which has yet to happen again in Gard’s tenure.

A similar collapse happened years later during the 2020-21 season.

Near the end of January, they were 13-4, and 7-3 in the Big Ten, ranked as high as No. 4 in the AP Poll and were in the top 10 until mid-January.

Yet in the final 10 games, they went 3-7, dropped out of the AP Poll and eventually lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Gard went on to say that “the nice thing about having the depth that we have” is that it helps to prevent complacency. Practices are intense enough to where he’s forced to “not separate them, but tap the brakes a little bit”.

When emphasizing the value of depth, he could’ve been recalling his last great team.

In the 2021-22 season, aka the Johnny Davis year, Wisconsin began with an 8-2 record in the conference and even finished at 15-5, eventually winning a share of the Big Ten regular season title.

However, Davis got injured in the final game of the regular season against Nebraska and was never the same, leading to a second-round tournament exit. They simply didn’t have the personnel to replace such a valuable player.

If this year’s team outperforms the Davis-led group, depth will likely be the differing factor.

Gard can now comfortably rely on reserves like John Blackwell, Carter Gilmore and Connor Essegian — who are likely all better than anybody on the 2021-22 bench.

This year’s team closely resembles that Davis-led squad, but with some other notable improvements.

A.J. Storr mirrors Davis as the obvious star, who can score with more ease and consistency than 99% of players that Gard has ever coached. Davis was a better defender and rebounder, but Storr is much more athletic and can shoot at a better clip. He feels more natural in the pure-scoring wing role than Davis did at times.

Both teams also feature Chucky Hepburn, Tyler Wahl and Steven Crowl in the starting lineup — except they’re now dependable veterans who know exactly how to play with a superstar.

Standing in this current team’s path is recent history, and some of the other heavy-hitters in the Big Ten.

The first test of the home stretch is on Sunday against No. 2 Purdue, which will be Wisconsin’s first game against a ranked Big Ten opponent this season.

They’ll face the Boilermakers once again in the regular season finale, when the Big Ten regular season title could be on the line. About a week before that game, they’ll host the No. 14 Fighting Illini, for the last major home game of the season.

If the Badgers want to actually win the regular season Big Ten title, they’ll likely have to beat Illinois, and Purdue at least once.

Based on talent, depth and the eye test, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to say that this is the best group of Gard’s tenure. Whether that leads to any real results is up to them, along with some other uncontrollable factors.

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