David Stluka/UW Athletics
Interim head coach Greg Gard has good reason to be on pins and needles.
The sudden retirement of Bo Ryan and subsequent naming of his longtime assistant Greg Gard as interim head coach of the UW men’s basketball team has turned an already frustrating Badgers season into a game-by-game do-or-die situation.
Wisconsin fell to No. 3 Maryland on Jan. 9 at the Kohl Center in what could have been the first signature victory of the Gard era. But then Maryland sophomore Melo Trimble sank a three-pointer with 1.2 seconds left to lift the Terps past the Badgers, 63-60.
The loss dropped the Badgers’ overall record to 9-8 (1-3 in the Big Ten and 2-3 in the Gard era).
This 2015-16 Badgers team — which lost five key players from previous back-to-back Final Four seasons — is really two different teams. One team couldn’t make a bucket even if you gave players a clear lane and a ladder, while the other team seemingly scores at will.
That disparity was abundantly clear when the Badgers blew that one-point lead over Maryland by scoring only three points during a stretch of nearly eight and a half minutes. Then they turned around and scored 11 points in 74 seconds.
The Maryland game was the fifth this season that the Badgers lost by three or fewer points, and it was the second game in a row decided within the final minute.
“It’s pretty disheartening,” junior guard Bronson Koenig — the guy who kick-started that 11-point run against Maryland — told reporters after the game. “Our margin of error is microscopic. We’ve just got to find ways to win, not find ways to lose.”
In other words, the Badgers need to get going, especially if they want UW athletic director Barry Alvarez to make Gard the official head coach after this season. All of the players appear to like Gard, but not everything is clicking yet. The blame for that usually falls on the head coach, so Gard’s future depends on how these guys play between now and March.
The Badgers have the talent to be better than their record indicates — Koenig, junior Nigel Hayes and redshirt freshman Ethan Happ each averages double digits in points per game, with UW outscoring opponents by an average of five points per game. And even though Gard, who uses more of his bench players than Ryan ever did, has no prior head coaching experience, he spent 23 seasons at Ryan’s side and learned from one of the best in the business.
For 14 consecutive years — the entire Bo Ryan era — the Badgers extended their season into the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. That streak has never seemed more in jeopardy than it does now.
