CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard sat alone at the podium inside the State Farm Center Tuesday night, answering the media questions about another game that went awry.
How critical were Illinois’ second-chance points? How can the offense function with Steven Crowl and John Tonje not being offensively efficient? Why couldn’t UW create a bigger advantage from the line?
A couple of floors below, in the visiting locker room, a more poignant conversation was happening between members of the Badgers basketball program. Fresh off an 86-80 loss to Illinois, the third straight for the program, the dialogue being spoken needed to be said.
“It’s just holding each other accountable, coming into work every day (and asking) what can you do to get better,” guard Max Klesmit said. “Regardless if you played 35 minutes or you played 35 seconds or you didn’t play at all, every man on this team has a role and every man has to do that role to the best of his ability to make the team better. It’s fine-tuning those things, looking yourself in the mirror to see what you can do.
What was said and how it was said will likely stay behind closed doors. Klesmit and sophomore Nolan Winter were the only two players available to the media, and neither divulged much other than saying there’s no sign of players reaching for the panic button.
There’s no panic because it’s easy to pick out the themes as to why Wisconsin has lost three straight, mistakes that have prevented them from building or altering momentum, especially in the second half. UW has given up 39 offensive rebounds resulting in 47 second-chance points in the last three games. Klesmit said the 15 offensive boards the Badgers gave up to the Illini hurt Wisconsin more than any turnovers. Even so, Wisconsin has committed 38 turnovers during this stretch, ending possessions without a shot attempt.
After outscoring its first eight opponents by 85 in the second half, the Badgers have been outscored in all three games by 27 points, two games erasing a halftime lead.
“It’s not rocket science,” Klesmit said. “It’s basketball at the end of the day. With the group of guys we have in the locker room, we’ll figure it out here quickly.”
Three-game losing streaks are not foreign to Klesmit. This is the fourth one he’s experienced in his three seasons since joining Wisconsin. Klesmit said senior point guard Kamari McGee talked about taking the results on the chin, while Winter pointed to the group’s veteran presence as the ones taking charge.
“There’s a lot of leadership in the locker room,” Winter said. “I wouldn’t say we were ever down. We’re looking forward to the next game, heads held high, talking through what we need to do better, who needs to be better, and in what areas.
“There’s a lot of leadership and accountability that took place. I think that’s good.”
Wisconsin’s 2024-25 roster isn’t short of veteran players. This season is the last year impacted by the COVID eligibility year, which awarded an extra year of eligibility for those redshirting freshmen impacted by the 2020 postseason being canceled.
Wisconsin has four of those players on its roster in forwards Steven Crowl and Carter Gilmore and guards Klesmit and John Tonje. The problem is other than Gilmore, who Gard stated postgame is “giving everything he’s got” to the team, the others are falling short.
Crowl has averaged 4.3 points over the last three games, as the senior is 5-for-18 from the floor. Klesmit was 2-for-8 from the floor in the second half and has shot less than 40 percent in six of the last seven games. Tonje is 13-for-38 (34.2 percent) over the last three games but has committed 12 turnovers.
During the season's opening month, Tonje’s scoring was critical because he covered the flaws now being exposed, like when he scored 41 in a win over Arizona when the Badgers gave up 24 offensive rebounds and 33 against a Pittsburgh team that registered 44 points in the paint.
“He watches more film than anybody else I know,” Klesmit said of Tonje. “He’ll take things and learn from that, figure out what he can do to help the team out. We all just got to be better. We can’t rely on John Tonje to come in and give us 20 or 30 every night. We have to have other guys step up. We have to have other guys make plays and make an impact.”
One of three Big Ten teams to go winless during the December conference stretch, Klesmit acknowledged the Badgers “have a lot to learn and a little time to do it.” UW plays Butler in Indianapolis on Saturday as part of the Indy Classic before a seven-day break for final exams. After hosting Detroit Mercy on December 22, the Badgers will play conference games the rest of the way.
There will be no more “get well games.” As the Badgers have found out over the past eight days, the Big Ten doesn’t offer many opportunities to be successful in playing through mistakes.
“Obviously when you’ve got a lot of competitors in one group together, losses are going to be frustrating,” Klesmit said. “Everybody wants to win super bad. We got a good old group. An experienced group. We’ll figure it out.”
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