The Wisconsin Badgers have seen an up-and-down start to the season, as they’ve seen some major scoring outbursts, but also some ugly losses en route to a 7-3 record so far.
While there are a lot of things to improve on, one thing that has really stood out has been the Badgers’ tempo so far. Wisconsin ranks at No. 62, which is easily the highest they’ve had under head coach Greg Gard. They were at No. 149 last season, which was the previous top mark.
The Badgers have been running in transition a ton
with point guard Nick Boyd at the helm, and they’ve also faced some fast-paced teams. But, is that what Wisconsin wants to do? Or have they been sped up too much?
Gard spoke about Wisconsin’s tempo and shot selection in the 90-60 loss against Nebraska
“When you start really going up and down, like if we can lock it into the half court, that’s the challenge,” Gard said. “Everybody’s defense is best when you get it set, but when you play in transition a lot, which we do both ways, part of what led into our defensive shortcomings were quick shots.
“Offensively, the 32 threes we took, 15 of them were bad shots. And that’s the highest, as we’ve evaluated every game all year. That’s the highest percentage we’ve had all year. We got very impatient. We were good the first five minutes, but then, for whatever reason, the last 35, we thought we had a better idea of how to attack the offensive end, and that affects your defense when you’re quick shooting and taking bad threes. Now you’re caught in transition, and then we get scattered.”
Gard doesn’t have a problem with the team shooting threes at a high volume. They just need to be better looks for the results to be better.
“In general, the whole theory is make sure we’re back, make sure [the] offense is really good,” Gard continued. “We want stuff at the rim. I told the team, not less threes, better threes, and if we take better ones, the results will be better. It’ll help set our defense, get to the free throw line more by playing through the paint more, and then get back, get our defense set. So we’re not playing in scramble mode as much as we were that night.”
Wisconsin is still clearly learning to play as a team. The increased tempo has shown both the potential and the current shortcomings as a team. They’ll look to turn things around when they take on the Villanova Wildcats at the Fiserv Forum on Friday.
