Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard always believed in his team.
It just took some time for them to come around.
After Sunday’s thrilling win over Xavier, Gard, Vitto Brown, Ethan Happ, and Bronson Koenig reflected on how far his team had come since their early season struggles. Wisconsin was getting accustomed to losing close games. The Badgers lost by six points to Purdue, one point to Indiana, three points to Maryland, and the most frustrating of all, five points to Northwestern.
Nigel Hayes dropped an f-bomb to the media after that Northwestern game, sounding off on his team for not being committed to the process. He was fed up.
Happ added that the team had a players only meeting in response to the performance against the Wildcats.
“We knew we were in danger of not making the NCAA Tournament if we kept up the poor play,” Happ said.
“I think that was the most pivotal moment that we had as a team,” Brown explained. “That was the time we really stepped back and reevaluated ourselves and really had to look in the mirror, each one of us individually, and see what we could do better.”
Despite the players only meeting, Gard was still committed to the process.
“I’ve always had confidence in them even when we were 1-4 and 9-9,” Gard said. “And the thing that I’ve talked about, and they’re probably tired of me hearing the word process, to stick to the process and not deviate from the plan. And I saw a lot of good things when we were 1-4, that we were headed in the right direction. Couple of those came down to the last minute of the game like this, and we didn’t come out on top. We have Melo Trimble hit a shot against us, very similar situation, tie game. He hits one to win it.”
The locker room was struggling to handle the losing, but the January 17 win over Michigan State started a seven-game winning streak that ignited positive attitudes in the locker room. Gard was winning over the locker room one step at a time, but winning sealed the deal.
“After that obviously the results should speak for themselves,” Koenig said. “And we banded together really closely.”
Again, Gard never gave up. He just continued to do his job and expected his guys to do the same.
“But I saw a lot of good things happening in that part of that process that we were getting better every day,” Gard continued. “And rather than focus on the last 30 seconds or a minute of a game, I tried to focus on the main — the other 50, 60, 70 possessions, and what could we do better and how can we get better in those areas. And that’s where they’ve grown so much. And if you can get yourself in the right frame of mind and work through those things. And they practiced better. They worked harder, became closer off the floor. The locker room chemistry got better, and eventually all those things started to show on a more consistent basis on the floor and then results started coming from that.”
It sure did.
And now, the Badgers are heading to the Sweet Sixteen.
“So, like I said, I wasn’t too concerned about it,” Gard concluded. “I just tried to focus on every day and make sure they were in the same frame of mind — don’t worry about February or March; we’ve got to take care of December and January and it’s one day at a time, and that’s what they’ve done.”