Wisconsin Hanging Tough in Competitive Big Ten

MADISON, Wis. – Not long after visiting with committed and uncommitted basketball recruits following his team’s 70-57 victory over Ohio State, Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard came into the media room to praise his team’s resiliency, competitiveness and willingness to prepare for the next challenge.

If those words sound familiar, it’s because Gard has had to use them often - to the media and to future recruits - to describe an emotionally-taxing season in one of the country’s toughest conferences.

“You can’t come up for air,” Gard said, referring to the league. “There’s no get-well games. We’re going to have our hands full next Saturday at (13th-place) Nebraska. The depth has never been like that. It’s just really, really competitive.”

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Of the 14 teams in the Big Ten, 12 are within four games of first place and eight – including Wisconsin – are 2.5 games behind the top stop. Only the Pac-12 conference is similarly bunched. The difference is the Pac-12 has six of its teams currently projected to make the NCAA Tournament by Yahoo.com. The Big Ten has 11, including the Badgers (14-10, 7-6 Big Ten) as a No.8 seed.

To this point in the season, every Big Ten team has had at least a two-game conference losing streak. On Monday, Michigan State’s current three-game losing streak – which includes a 64-63 loss to the Badgers Feb.1 - made them the first team since Kentucky in 2013-14 to drop out of the rankings after ranking first in the Associated Press preseason poll.

It’s speaks to the parity of the league and the struggles of coaching staffs to try and generate a rhythm when every game is a grind.

“You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low,” Gard said. “If things don’t go well, we have to turn the page because we have another really good opponent coming again. You have to keep that mindset as you walk through the season. It’s cliché that you go one day at a time, but if you go any other way, I think you’re setting yourself up for a massive failure.”

On its bye week with just over four weeks from the start of the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis, Wisconsin – while still undermanned – has avoided anything more than normal bumps and bruises. Making sure there was still tread left on the tires was a big point of emphasis entering this season.

Going through self-evaluation like he does every offseason, Gard studied last spring why a Wisconsin team that started last season 17-6 went 6-5 over the final 11 games, a swoon that began in mid-February. Seeing the offense crawl to a whimper in the final two postseason games, Gard came into this season prepared to modify the physical toll of practices sooner than in the past.

But with the Badgers already low on scholarship players entering the season, Gard lost even more players on the scout team when reserve center Joe Hedstrom had knee surgery and assistant coaches (and former UW players) Joe Krabbenhoft and Alando Tucker also get hurt.

“The numbers have put us in that position faster than even I would have anticipated,” he said.

There’s been a lot of other things that Gard didn’t see coming this season (suspensions, transfers, tragedy, resignations). There have also been four road losses by double figures, and six total where UW failed to crack 55 points, bringing in criticism and doubt from the outside.

Maybe it was apropos that Wisconsin – after an ugly road loss at Minnesota three days earlier – had the 2000 Final Four team visit practice Saturday and attended Sunday's game against Ohio State. UW’s players were mostly still in strollers 20 years ago (freshman Tyler Wahl wasn’t born yet), but the staff made it a point to tell their tale – a team that was 11-10 overall, 3-6 in the league and in danger of missing the tournament caught fire at the right time.

That squad only had one player average double figures that season (Mark Vershaw) but delivered three effectual performances against Fresno State, Arizona, LSU and Purdue, the last three all nationally ranked, that was rooted in team defense and balance.

“The year we went to the Final Four, there were a lot of ups and downs," center Andy Kowske said. “Pretty much the whole season it was looking like we weren't going to get in the tournament. We just stuck together, and we didn't quit … We never folded.”

Wearing throwback uniforms from the 2000 team, Wisconsin followed that script with suffocating post defense, assertiveness on both ends of the floor and getting at least eight points from six players. The message entering the game from the staff? It was like what the Wisconsin players said to one another 20 years ago: just play and rely on one another.

“This team right now going through some of the turmoil of the last two weeks, they could fold,” Kowske said. “But they're not. They're going to stick together. They're a good team and they've had a really tough schedule so far, which I'm sure has toughened them up even more. If they just stick together, they're going to be fine.”