PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Is it too early for a must-win game for the University of Wisconsin?
After three games and still a week away from Thanksgiving, having more than 28 games remaining and 123 days to Selection Sunday, the correct answer is yes, and that was the tone coming out of the Badgers locker room Tuesday night.
“It wasn’t the best day, but it’s a long season,” wing A.J. Storr said. “Just focusing on the next game, play better, play harder. We got a lot more games to go.”
But while Friday’s home game against Robert Morris (1-2) will do little to enhance a resume, a neutral site victory on Monday over Virginia will. Winning a postseason tournament could have the same effects winning the Maui Invitational did for the 2022 UW team that won a Big Ten championship.
However, all of that seems like a current pipe dream with how the last two games in a five-day span have gone, perhaps why head coach Greg Gard was more than a little perturbed by a perceived lack of effort during a 72-59 defeat to Providence at Amica Mutual Pavilion (a final score dressed up by UW closing on a 13-1 run against mostly the Friars’ backups).
Gard listed more than a half-dozen problems with Wisconsin’s defensive performance. He believed all the problems were not long-lasting deficiencies but rather correctable mistakes. It was unclear by the first media timeout if he still felt that way. What was evident was Wisconsin was close to non-competitive.
Providence hit its first three shots, 6 of 8, 9 of 13, and 11 of 16 to build an 18-point lead. UW never provided much of a threat after that.
“They made some plays, knocked down shots, but we gave them confidence,” Gard said. “Loose balls that we don’t get to, we don’t dive on, they get and hit a three. Hustle plays like that, it was evident early (we lacked energy). By the time we started to figure it out, we were in too deep of a hole.”
The concerns after three games are starting to mount. Much like the student-athlete cohorts on the football team, Wisconsin is starting notoriously slow and struggling to play with defensive energy. The Badgers allowed Tennessee to shoot 55.6 percent in the first half, building an eight-point halftime lead they never could erase because the Vols shot close to 45 percent in the second half.
The Friars were even better, shooting 63.2 percent from the floor and hitting 6 of 10 three-point attempts.
“The first half we got down, and it felt like we lost our groove a little, hard to get out of a hole when you’re down, especially in college basketball,” Storr said. “I think bringing that intensity right out of the gate would help us a lot.”
“You see good runs where you see good spurts, four-minute spurts, six-minute spurts where we are really locked in on defense,” added Tyler Wahl. “The challenge going into practice this next week is being able to elongate those runs and shorten that span where we are not clicking on all cylinders.”
The Badgers are also regressing offensively. It was unrealistic for Wisconsin to consistently match the Kohl-Center record 105 points it scored in the opener, but the Badgers scored 70 on 41.0 percent shooting Friday. UW was just 33.9 percent on Tuesday.
Both games have seen UW shoot 25.0 percent from the perimeter and miss a ton of looks around the rim. The common denominator is the Badgers have played against two teams with athletic forwards who have caused Wahl, Steven Crowl, and Storr to not play off two feet, second guess their decisions, and not play patient.
Wahl (1 of 7), Crowl (1 of 4) and Storr (1 of 5) combining to hit just 3 of 16 shots in the first 20 minutes.
"I'm not a math major, but that’s not very good,”Gard said. “The numbers bear out what I'm seeing and what we need to get better at."
The numbers in the last two games show Wisconsin has gone 16-for-38 on attempts at or around the rim.
“Early on I was definitely more hesitant, trying to get to a second move or a third move when I should have just went up in the beginning,” Wahl said.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got a tough schedule. If you don’t step up to play, on any given night, you’re going to get your butt kicked. That’s what happened.”
One of UW’s biggest problems last year was losing winnable games, especially in the nonconference part of its schedule. Would a neutral-site November victory over No.3 Kansas provided a confidence boost that carried forward?
Would a stronger defensive effort against Wake Forest’s Tyler Appleby and his 32 points prevented the Badgers from being saddled with a Quad-3 loss that was an anchor on their resume? UW knocked off Marquette - unranked at the time but the eventual Big East champion - in overtime but didn't have much else to build on when conference play began.
Injuries haven't helped but inconsistent play has meant the Badgers are 11-15 since the calendar turned to 2023.
“On to the next,” freshman John Blackwell said. “We can put our heads up and try to feel sorry for ourselves, but it’s still early in the season. We’re not even in December yet.”
The fact that Wisconsin is four months from the postseason is the encouraging part. The discouraging part is December brings matchups with No.4 Marquette, a road game with No.18 Michigan State, and a cross-country trip to No.3 Arizona in a seven-day period. If the Badgers can't fix their woes and find some rhythm, it won’t be a Merry Christmas and potentially another disappointing March.
“You got to play harder,” Storr said. “It takes no talent or skill, just play harder.”
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