The Wisconsin Badgers had yet another valiant comeback effort, but fell short on Saturday, this time at the hands of the No. 1 seed Michigan Wolverines 68-65 in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals.
Once again, the Badgers erased a 15-point second-half comeback, but this time around, they weren’t able to finish the job, as Yaxel Lendeborg sealed the deal on a go-ahead three with 0.4 seconds left in the game. With the loss, Wisconsin will now wait for Selection Sunday to see their seeding and region,
and gets an extra day of rest and recovery.
After the game, head coach Greg Gard spoke with the media as he broke down the game and what he learned from his team throughout the week. Here’s everything he said, courtesy of Big Ten Communications.
Opening Statement…
Obviously a heck of a comeback by our guys there in the second half to a terrific team. Both of our games with them have been great games and terrific battles.
Obviously we’re extremely proud of our guys of how we couldn’t get shots to go in for the latter most of the game, and then we got a rhythm going. Extremely proud of them and how we played this week here. This will be good for us because now we’ll get healthy, get some rest, and get ready for next week.
This group is battle tested, and I think hungry to make a deep run. We know we start with one game, but like I said, couldn’t be prouder of how this group has grown together over this season, and we’ve turned into one of the better teams in the country.
On the difficulties of guarding Yaxel Lendeborg…
He’s a complete player at 6’9′. So you’ve got a guy that can put the ball on the floor. They can try to post him. He can shoot the 3. They move him around, put him in some gap driving at times. He can ball screen. They can ball screen for him.
Like I said, the skill set is one thing, but when you combine that with his size, it obviously makes it a very unique matchup. I thought for the most part our guys, we didn’t give anything easy. The 3 he got at the end of the first half that we over extended out top and got caught too high and allowed the top to corner pass to become too easy, and it slowed our rotation where we couldn’t rotate fast enough.
But he’s a really good player obviously, but that’s not the only guy they have. They have a lot of really good players. Yeah, he’s a unique matchup because of the size and his versatility.
On the growth of Austin Rapp/Aleksas Bieliauskas without Nolan Winter…
I think both of those guys, you talked about the growth, somebody asked about the growth, those two guys have grown as much as anybody on the team. For Austin to have a really rough start, and as he mentioned, air ball the one. I think I looked at one point and he was 0 for 7 or 1 for 6 or whatever, and then he got going. So the confidence to keep shooting.
That’s one thing we try to embed in these guys is just, yeah, you’ve got to keep shooting. You’ve got to stay with your confidence. I even thought we turned some down at times. Mara blocked a couple and got some hands on it.
I don’t want them gun shy. I don’t want them overthinking it and becoming hesitant because obviously when we are spraying 3s, it opens up so much more, and then the guards can get downhill. It plays into the overall plan.
On Austin Rapp’s turnaround after slow start to year…
The jump Austin’s made? Tremendous. I think JB touched on it. It’s not just the 3-point shooting. Everybody gets caught up, and that’s what everybody looks at and talks about, it’s the other parts of his game that have grown — the defensive awareness, the embracing of physicality, the embracing and the importance of rebounding. All the things that have nothing to do with shooting have improved, which have helped make him a better shooter and a more confident player.
His growth, like I said, has been terrific, and that’s a credit to him to stay true to it. He started early in the year, and he wasn’t ready for that. I thought we needed to make a change. He’s taken that and used that to his advantage and grown his game and improved immensely as a player.
On why Wisconsin has been bad matchup for Michigan…
I think we probably make a lot of teams uncomfortable because of that attribute to our team. We’ve been doing that for — we do it in a little different way now, but we’ve been doing that at Wisconsin for 25 years, different system within what we do within the swing.
But we had bigs that shot it and shot it really well. We just get them in a different way. There’s more ball screens. Obviously the spacing has changed a little bit, but in terms of having bigs that shoot, we’ve been known for that around the country. If you’re a big that can shoot, Wisconsin’s a good place to go because we’re going to let you let ’em fly.
On defensive connectivity…
Yeah, it’s a piece of the growth of this team that started back in the summer. You look at 7 of the 8 guys that played tonight or today weren’t here last year. So the newness of everybody coming together, it takes a little time, more time than probably I would have liked. I’m a little impatient in that regard, but the connectivity is a part of that.
You have to go through some adversity. You have to
figure out what doesn’t work and how much better you need to do things, how much harder you need to play. I don’t think we had a great vision or understanding of how hard we had to play earlier in the year. We did in stretches, but we didn’t do it consistently. We’re doing it consistently now.
Obviously when you play hard, you’re never going to play perfect, but if you play hard, you can cover up for a lot of imperfections and make up for things. This group has understood and embraced how playing hard is to our benefit.
On what Badgers can apply from here to NCAA Tournament…
Obviously you always come into these things to win, and I get asked about that a lot, right? When they’re keeping score and there’s a trophy at the end of the road, it’s all guns blazing towards it.
But I think the benefits coming out of this, obviously our younger players because we’re playing without two, our starter and rotational guy in Janicki and Winter, so some of our younger guys have gotten a little more experience in brighter lights than they would have normally got.
Same thing for a guy like Austin Rapp. Now he started X number of games since Nolan’s been out. Those experiences all pay dividends. Aleksas Bieliauskas has had to carry a bigger load up front. That’s going to carry dividends going forward into next week and for his career. It’s not just a small snapshot. You’re looking at how this can benefit younger players going forward.
I think this group understands how good they are, but you get to this point and time of the year, they’re all good. No matter who we play next week and where we get sent, we’re going to play a really good team. So just understanding and keeping in mind what makes us good and stay true to that and do it better and keep getting better.
That’s what I said a week ago when we won at Purdue, this group has gotten better. I think we can still get better. This was a good ‘nother step for certain guys to continue to improve and get more confidence, and ultimately it makes the team better.
On extra day of rest/recovery…
If we would have won, it didn’t matter, right? It is what it is. Whether you play Thursday or you play a Friday wherever you get sent, I assume we won’t be in a play-in game in Dayton. I think we’ve accomplished quite a bit to be above that line.
You want to be playing tomorrow, but at the same time, yeah, we have to use it to our advantage. So we’ve obviously played on Sunday the last two years in this tournament. It had an effect. I’m not going to be naive enough to think that it didn’t. Four games in four days takes a toll. But again, you balance that drive to compete and win, but we know the big fish is coming now.
These guys are ready for it. I think the buildup to this, the growth they’ve shown getting in this environment is good. Getting some experience for guys that normally wouldn’t play as much had we been completely healthy, it all will pay dividends if we use it and point it in the right direction and know we’ve got to get back, rest, get healthy, and get ready to attack wherever we get sent and whoever we have.
On what respect means at this time of year…
I think Wisconsin’s never been one that gets a lot of bells and whistles. We’re a blue collar — I’ve seen this program grow immensely and evolve and stay so consistent, and I think that’s one thing that gets overlooked. There’s flashes in the pans in programs. Around the country you see it. They’ll have a blip on the radar.
But for this program to stay so consistent over 25 years — and it doesn’t mean you’re going to play in the tournament every year, but the culture and the way we go about things, I think the players that come here have a great experience.
So we don’t get maybe the complete — we have to earn it, and that’s okay. That’s okay. We have to earn the respect. I thought Boyd and Blackwell maybe should have been a little higher on the All Conference list, but this league has as much talent as it’s ever had in my 25 years. Part of it’s the 18 teams, but the depth of the talent across the board, this league hasn’t seen anything like it.
Just got to keep — respect is least. I’m going to pull a little quote from JJ Watt. It’s about respect. You can look it up. But rent’s due every day. So we’ve got to continue to pay rent to continue to play well. Your play will get you your respect.
I think internally within the basketball communities across the country, Wisconsin is extremely respected, and you go back to Coach Bennett, you go to Coach Ryan, the foundation of the program and what those guys did, but you have to continue to earn that. Sometimes we don’t get the attention maybe, that that’s what he was talking about, but that’s okay. We’ll earn it, and we have to go prove it on the court when the scoreboard is running.
