Wisconsin Expected to Return a Veteran Roster in 2020-21
MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin will play no postseason games for the first time since 1995, but to rule the 2019-20 season a failure couldn’t be further from the truth.
In reality, this past season might be one of the finest in the history of the program considering the circumstances.
“Look what we’ve accomplished,” head coach Greg Gard said Thursday. “If this is how it’s going to end, you’ve ended with as big of a bang as you could possibly have. You’ve gone out on top.”
The triumphant moment happened on Saturday, a 60-56 victory at Indiana. It was the eighth straight victory for the program, earned them a share of the 19th regular season conference championship in school history and clinched the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament.
It also represented the last game of UW’s season, which ended abruptly Thursday afternoon when the Big Ten canceled the conference tournament and the NCAA canceled the national tournament. In the blink of an eye, the Badgers – a potential No.4 seed who were peaking at the right time – were done.
UW finished the season 21-10, going 14-6 against Big Ten competition and 10-8 against Quadrant-1 opponents.
Accomplishing those accolades appeared like long shots throughout a calendar year of turmoil. UW’s program was rocked during Memorial Day weekend when assistant coach Howard Moore and his family were struck in a head-on collision by a wrong-way driver in the early morning hours on a Michigan highway. Moore’s wife and daughter were killed, his son survived with minor injuries and Howard continues to recovery in a long-term care facility.
Closer to the court, Wisconsin’s repeated appeals to get junior Micah Potter immediately eligible were denied by the NCAA, forcing him to sit for the first 10 games of the season. UW then saw second-leading scorer Kobe King quit the team in late January following a blowout loss to Purdue and had to press on after strength and conditioning coach Erik Helland was forced to resign following the use of a racial epithet.
The Helland news on Feb.6 was the last off-the-court drama the Badgers experienced. They didn’t lose again.
“It’s a credit to our guys,” Gard said. “Nowhere do you look to then those guys in that locker room and what they’ve done, how they’ve unified, bonded together and played for each other, played for what’s on the front of their jersey and done it in such an unselfish matter that they don’t who led us in scoring.”
During the final eight games, six different players led the team in scoring, part of the reason Wisconsin became the first Big Ten regular season champion in league history to not feature a first- or second-team all-conference selection, a distinction that dates to 1948 (73 seasons).
Of those five, the only one not expected to return next season is senior Brevin Pritzl, leading some to have the Badgers as one of the conference’s top teams entering next season.
Expected to return is a starting lineup that could all be seniors: point guard D’Mitrik Trice (9.6 ppg with a 2.4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio), guard Brad Davison (10 ppg, 4.3 rpg), forward Aleem Ford (9.7 points and 5.5 rebounds over the final 10 games), forward Nate Reuvers (team-best 13.1 ppg and 56 blocks) and forward Micah Potter (10.3 ppg and team-high 6.3 rpg).
Finishing the season with only eight scholarship players, Wisconsin’s bench will be thin beyond senior guard Trevor Anderson (1.8 ppg) and sophomore forward Tyler Wahl (2.6 ppg), but Gard and his staff signed a six-member recruiting class that ranks the highest in the internet era, highlighted by Rivals.com four-star forward prospects Ben Carlson and Jonathan Davis.
Combine the stats of Pritzl, King and walk-on Michael Ballard, Wisconsin is expected to return 78.5 percent of its scoring, 83.5 percent of its rebounds and 77.5 percent of its minutes.
Gard, who earned Big Ten Coach of the Year for his efforts, likely won’t start thinking about next season for several more days, if not weeks. In a way, doing so would be a disservice to a team that overcame a ton of obstacles to win a championship in its final game.
“I’m sure awfully grateful for the last six weeks I got to be with these guys and what they’ve accomplished,” Gard said. “I am sitting here thinking about this team and this year and smiling. That’s how I feel about this team, what they’ve accomplished, what they’ve come through, how they’ve grown together.”