MADISON, Wis. – When the autopsy of the 2022-23 Wisconsin Badgers is completed in a few weeks, the opinions of what the main cause of the disconnect was will vary from all the armchair physicians. Coaching will draw some finger-pointing, as will roster construction, player decision-making, or just an unfortunate case of bad luck.

But as he chatted following a February practice, assistant coach Sharif Chambliss pointed to an underlining issue the Badgers have battled with for most of the season, they have struggled to develop an alpha personality in practice.

Competitiveness in practice wasn't a problem for Chambliss’s 2004-05 team. He recalled himself and Alando Tucker grinding during drills, Mike Wilkinson and Brian Butch battling in the low post, and Jason Chappell and Greg Stiemsma lighting things up from the scout team.

Having a player who dominates practice in that way is still something that the staff is trying to push.

“It should be Tyler,” Chambliss said. “It should be Chucky some days. It should be Steve some days. We need somebody consistently to do that.”

Time is running out to do it this season, and possessing a vocal leader could determine whether Wisconsin claws its way into the NCAA Tournament or not.

The consensus from online bracketologists is that the Badgers sit just barely in the 68-team field or are sitting a few slots outside of it. That makes the games for Wisconsin (17-13) the next few days of utmost importance as the 12th seed in the Big Ten Tournament, being held this year at the United Center in Chicago.

UW sits at No.78 in the NCAA NET rankings with a record of 6-7 in Quad-1 games and 5-5 in Quad-2 games. The six Quad-1 wins tie the Badgers for 14th nationally, but their 6-11 record since January 7 (including seven losses by four points or less or in overtime) has pushed them closer to the bubble.

Playing on the opening day of the tournament for the first time since the conference expanded the event in 2015 with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers, Wisconsin will likely need to pick up a Quad-2 win against the Buckeyes (13-18), a Quad-1 win against No.5 Iowa (19-12), and possibly one against No.4 Michigan State (19-11) to feel safe.

UW beat Ohio State in Columbus in early February, swept the Hawkeyes, and lost by four at home to the Spartans, so a run of success isn’t completely out of the question. Winners of games in the first round are also 6-8 in the quarterfinals but have yet to advance to the semifinals.

There’s also the problem of the Badgers not having won consecutive games since the beginning of January.

“I feel like there’s a whole bunch of different answers, different opinions all throughout the country (about where we stand),” forward Tyler Wahl said. “We’ve got to focus on what we got to do, kind of let the outside noise be noise.”

A sign of the inconsistencies of the season was further implicated Monday when the Badgers didn’t put a player on the conference’s first, second, or third team – by either the media or the coaches – for the first time since 2000.

In times of strife last season, Wisconsin knew it could lean on its two alpha guards. Johnny Davis was a consensus All-American who was the Lute Olson National Player of the year, the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year, and the Big Ten Player of the Year.

Brad Davison played in a school record 161 games with 157 career starts, taking advantage of the COVID season to rally a team to two regular season conference titles in years where they were viewed as afterthoughts.

With Davis and Davison now playing professionally, UW has been able to put players in their roles and simulate what to do in the final possession in a tie game with no timeouts left, but they struggled to have players replace their voices.

“The Brad Davisons of the world are unicorns, that you could tell from a mile away that he was going to be a really good leader,” head coach Greg Gard said. “Everybody leads in different ways, and that’s great. There needs to be different styles of leadership. Leadership is organic. I can’t anoint somebody a leader. I see qualities but you have to be able to do the job yourself first before you tell other people how to do it. It’s usually successful players that do a good job of taking that leadership role.”

The one player who has tried to grow into that role has been Wahl. A four-year contributor to the program, Wahl has developed his voice over the past 18 months to become more vocal in huddles, while guard Max Klesmit has grown into that role in his first full season with the program. UW being 0-5 without them in the starting lineup speaks to their impact.

However, the underlining issues extend deeper considering the Badgers are 5-6 since Klesmit returned to the lineup. If UW wants to play its way into the NCAA Tournament field, and survive a conference field where second and 12th place were separated by three games,

“I feel like we’ve been in a lot of close games, played a lot of good competition these last couple weeks. We’ve been right there in games, just haven’t been able to finish it out. It was nice to get that win at Minnesota, so I feel like we’re trending in the right direction.

“You don’t really know what to expect (in Chicago). We’re going to go in there, do whatever we’ve got to do, take it game by game.”

_________________________________________________

*Chat about this article in The Badgers' Den

*Check out our videos, interviews, and Q&As on our YouTube channel

*Subscribe and listen to the BadgerBlitz.com podcast (as seen on Apple, Google, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts)

*Follow us on Twitter: @McNamaraRivals, @TheBadgerNation, @RaulV45, @pete_brey12, @seamus_rohrer

*Like us on Facebook