Ever since Bo Ryan took over as head coach, Wisconsin basketball has forged an identity as a team that does not beat themselves. Tonight, however, this Wisconsin team did just that when it mattered most. The Badgers were eliminated in the Sweet 16 by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a 61-56 heartbreaker – and turnovers were the reason why.

Overall, Wisconsin turned the ball over 17 times, the second most in a single game during the Greg Gard era. Of those 17, the most crucial were two from upperclassmen leaders Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig in the final 30 seconds that caused a three-point lead to shockingly evaporate into a five-point loss and a journey home.

“We’re a program that prides itself on taking care of the ball,” Gard said in a dejected opening statement of his press conference moments ago. “Obviously, I’m disappointed from the standpoint of having 17 turnovers.”

“We had too many turnovers,” said Hayes, citing the main reason for losing the game. “We didn’t play well enough and should have won this game.”

Forward Vitto Brown, whose three-pointer with 30 seconds left would have been a game-winner on most other nights, acknowledged that the turnovers meant the team had strayed away from its Wisconsin identity. “Sure, they earned the win, but we definitely gave it away as well,” he said in a quiet locker room post-game statement. “We just started moving in slow-motion down the stretch and you can’t do that.”

“We turned it over 17 times, man,” said backup guard Jordan Hill. “That’s just not Wisconsin-like. It was very out of character for us.”

“Yeah, we were up for most of the game despite coughing the ball up and taking suspect shots, but there were just miscommunications that you can’t have at this point in the season. Guys should know each other well enough to not keep throwing the ball out of bounds to the coaches — myself included,” he elaborated.

Undoubtedly, the most crucial mistake of the night was Hayes’ turnover. With 15 seconds remaining and the Badgers up one in a position to close out the game, the junior forward coughed up the ball trying to split a trap in the backcourt leading to an easy layup that gave Notre Dame the lead. Coach Gard was questioned extensively about the instance in his press conference afterward.

“We wanted to get the ball to Nigel, which is what we did,” he said. “I liked, with him being older, bigger, stronger, that he can go through traps. He can go over the top of traps. But I wanted the ball in his hands for sure.”

“I’ll have to look at the tape to see exactly what happened. I know he tried to split [the trap] and the ball got knocked away and obviously it ended up with the layup for them.”

“In that situation, my main concern was getting the ball in bounds, but you have to make sure you take care of the ball in those key situations and tonight we didn’t.”

“In terms of what I talked about in the timeout, they did exactly what I wanted them to do and got it where I wanted them to get it. I guess [in that situation] you’ve got to do a better job of trying to split that trap or getting rid of it before the trap comes.”

Despite the self-inflicted nature of the loss, Gard still managed to reflect and draw positives from the night full of giveaways.

“17 turnovers is bad, but we’ll deal with it,” he assured. “I thought we never quite got to where we needed to get taking care of the ball all year, but part of it is our youth. Part of it is things we’ve still got to mature through and grow. Part of it is decision-making that we need to become even smarter basketball players. That’s an area in the offseason we can really hone in on with this young group.”

“Hopefully with experience, albeit sometimes rough experiences like tonight in a season-ending situation like this, that we learn from that and use it to fuel what’s down the road.”

Leave it to the man who salvaged a lost season to come up with a positive outlook on a calamitous season-ending loss like the one he experienced tonight. Still, the fact remains that Gard is correct. This is a young team that matured so much in the course of the last two-and-a-half months, and will be able to mature so much more throughout an offseason spent together as a group. As heart-breaking as tonight’s loss was, the future remains bright for this group and the identity of Wisconsin basketball will be preserved and even flourish in the season that we can all now look forward to.