Wisconsin Exchanges One Quality Opponent for Another in Schedule Roulette

MADISON, Wis. – If Greg Gard was still coaching in the era of VHS tapes, the University of Wisconsin head coach may have a challenge preparing for its newly scheduled opponent with tipoff less than 48 hours away.

But with three days to prepare, the Badgers will have plenty of time for Rhode Island newly added to the schedule, even if getting them there was anything but.

“There are just so many moving parts with this thing (schedule),” Gard told reporters on Monday. “It’s constantly changing. Trying to play as many games against the best competition we can find. Probably More so than ever, just trying to get a schedule together trumps what that schedule at the end of the day is going to look like because it’s not going to look like how we intended it to look.”

Bracing for scheduling changes from the onset, a new reality trying to play games in a global pandemic, the Badgers swapped out a game with No.25 Louisville, currently dealing with its own COVID issues, for a Wednesday afternoon matchup with the Rams at the Kohl Center (3:30 p.m./BTN).

“To be able to get Rhode Island at the 11th hour like this, really good team, a really good program, terrific players,” Gard said, “I think that’s as about as good as it can get given the short notice we had to work with.”

The plans started in motion even before last Thursday when the 25th-ranked Cardinals were forced to cancel a game and put their program on pause due to a positive test. UW had already been looking to add a game on Dec.12 before the nonconference schedule wrapped and had looked at No.12 Tennessee, who was supposed to play at the Kohl Center this season to complete a home-and-home agreement from last December.

However, there was uncertainty with the Volunteers returning to competition after their first five games were canceled due to COVID. The pursuit was serious from Wisconsin’s end, considering the Badgers were trying to shuffle Big Ten games at the end of the month to make it work.

Looking at the shuffling possibilities, Gard said UW explored the notion of moving its game against Northern Iowa from December 16 to this weekend because the Panthers’ upcoming opponent – Richmond – paused activities on December 1. That idea was shelved because Richmond was given the green light on Saturday to start practicing.

“We had a lot of different options,” Gard said. “Some smaller-level teams, and we also had an opportunity to go to Indianapolis to play a neutral-site game. I looked at that and it was going to be (tonight). Coincidently the team we were going to play (Connecticut) went on pause, so that would have been thrown out the window.”

It was a sign to stick with the Rhode Island plan and a tentative agreement was struck if the Louisville game couldn’t be played as scheduled.

“Rhode Island came on to the map late Saturday afternoon, and we had to quickly kind of forecast,” Gard said. “What I didn’t want to happen is not have Louisville on Wednesday and the weekend not happen, and here are we sitting almost two weeks without a game. These guys want to play, and that’s important. We need to see really good competition to keep learning and growing, but we’re also running out of dates to get seven games in.”

The hope is to reschedule the Louisville game no earlier than Sunday, but that will be dependent on how the testing goes with the Cardinals program this week. Either way, the Badgers are playing a quality opponent tomorrow in the Rams, who were on the NCAA Tournament bubble last season.

Gard gave high praise to senior point guard Fatts Russell, who was a first-team All-Atlantic 10 selection last year. He leads the team with 17.6 points per game, as the Rams are scoring 79.2 points per game, have five players averaging at least 7.0 points and eight players averaging 16.0 minutes per game.

“Coach Gard always talks about with the game of basketball, we’re always able to bounce back quick because the games are a lot more rapid,” senior Aleem Ford said. “In football, if you take a tough loss, you got to sit a week and just wait around for that next opportunity … Regardless of who we have scheduled in front of us, we’re just going to attack it day by day.”

Gard had been looking forward to a “get better day” for a while, a practice where the Badgers could focus solely on themselves instead of preparing for an opponent. It just so happened that Sunday was one of those days, two days following Wisconsin’s first loss of the season.

In the 67-65 setback at Marquette, victimized on a buzzer-beating tip-in by freshman Justin Lewis, Wisconsin was hurt by lapses in ball-screen and transition defense, not feeding the post and finishing inside the lane, missing players cutting to the basket and committing too many fouls.

“There were a lot of things we did well, but it was good to get some things on film,” Gard said. “It puts live experience with instruction, and that’s the best way for us to take a big jump forward.”

After taking Saturday off, Gard said UW watched plenty of film from the loss, including the final play where all UW had to do was crash harder into the paint and tip the ball to let the final 0.9 seconds expire and force overtime.

“Really, everything that we did wrong was kind of like things that we did to ourselves,” Ford said. “We kind of beat ourselves in a sense. Pretty much everything that Coach Gard showed on the clips was us breaking our rules.

“Defensively, if they scored, it was most likely because we broke a rule, didn’t box out, and things that we can really fix. So, on the bright side, it’s something that we can continue to work on and get better at. We really get that chance with a good team like Rhode Island coming in Wednesday.”