The Wisconsin Badgers are heading to Milwaukee this Friday, where they’ll take on a new opponent for the first time in seven months when they face the Oklahoma Sooners at Fiserv Forum for an exhibition.
For the last few weeks, the Badgers have been practicing and scrimmaging against themselves, getting ready for the upcoming season. Now, we’ll get an early glance at what that progress as a team has looked like against Power 4-level competition.
The Badgers did host their annual Red-White scrimmage
over the weekend, where the fans got to see the new-look team, which added five transfers and four freshmen to an existing core that included guard John Blackwell, forward Nolan Winter, and wing Jack Janicki.
One of those transfers quickly made his impact known, as point guard Nick Boyd led all scorers on the day with 21 points, getting shots in a lot of different ways. In addition to that scoring spark, Boyd was a willing passer working out of ball screens and had the intensity defensively.
His speed especially stood out, as we reported after the scrimmage. Boyd got up and down the court in transition a couple of times for quick finishes or fouls at the rim, showcasing the Badgers’ increased tempo. And head coach Greg Gard wants even more than that.
“I thought he was one of them that backed off the pace towards the end of the first half, and we talked about that at halftime, to keep our foot on the gas,” Gard said about Boyd. “It doesn’t mean you have to race it down and shoot it, but we got to come with the thrust and put pressure on the rim and pressure on the paint transition.
“You can just tell his experience. He’s getting fouled there late in the game, getting to the line, wants the ball in his hands. I created a little head coach, executive decision magic to make it a little more dramatic, but you can see he’s obviously been in those game situations. And that’s why we wanted him here, because we knew the type of player he is, and he always wants to get better. He’s really self-critical of the one turnover he had in the first half when he tried to one-hand it to the lift guy on the backside. So he’s conscious of things. But also, I like the aggressive mindset that he comes with. He’s very fearless.”
Boyd’s competitive nature has been present in practice thus far, and Gard has seen it push the rest of the team’s standards up.
“We’ve seen him. I’ve intentionally kept specifically him and Blackwell on opposite teams so they can compete with each other, and not so much that they go head-to-head,” Gard continued about Boyd. “But what they do is they lift both teams. John lifts his team, Nick lifts his team, and takes them to another level. So when they make the people around them better, that’s good, and obviously, then the convergence of playing together, we’ve done that some, and will continue to do that. But it has just lifted the competition and practice, and it’s made everybody else have to be better in order to keep pace with those guys.”
Boyd will take on a big role for the Badgers this season, and we’ll see him play alongside Blackwell and transfer guard Andrew Rohde this Friday against Oklahoma, but he’s looked the part early on as Wisconsin’s point guard.
