This Saturday’s game for the Wisconsin Badgers against the Michigan State Spartans has become a lot more interesting than it already was going to be… but not for the right reasons.
With Kobe King now off the team (by his own choice) and Brad Davison suspended for one game, Wisconsin might be limited to a seven-man rotation unless Greg Gard wants to play some players who have barely played this season. Gard’s lineup combinations represent a very important set of choices he must make in this game, but that isn’t the biggest set of choices facing the Wisconsin coach, who has endured a week straight from hell.
The most important choice Gard has to make in this game isn’t whether Micah Potter plays his usual 15 minutes or 23. The most defining decision Gard must make in this game is how he treats the moment. He can make two fundamental choices. One isn’t necessarily the more correct choice; the point of emphasis here is that Gard has to juggle competing tensions and goals. He has to weigh the immediate urgency of the occasion against the long-term growth of this team.
Again, this is not a setup in which one answer is clearly better than the other. This is about being realistic and ambitious at the same time, trying to hold both sides together.
Here is the explanation of the fundamental competing tensions at work for Wisconsin heading into Saturday in the Kohl Center versus Sparta:
This is a moment in which Wisconsin plays a very important game, but without a lot of needed resources. The Badgers aren’t slightly shorthanded; they are severely undermanned. Gard will have to give extended minutes to players he currently (or recently) doesn’t trust to play extended minutes. Davison is such a tireless, high-energy defender, and since other Badgers will have to compensate for Davison at the defensive end, it is hard to see where Wisconsin will find enough offense. Players who will be asked to carry out tough defensive assignments aren’t likely to score in bunches at the other end of the floor.
Yet, this is a big game for the Badgers. A win would remove any and all bubble talk, solidifying UW’s place in the NCAA Tournament. Some people might ask the following question: Should Wisconsin simply punt this game and look ahead to the hated Golden Gophers of Minnesota on Wednesday night? Give Potter 30 minutes, perhaps. Let him sink or swim against a good team and give him a lot of film to study so that he can develop for the rest of the season. Give Trevor Anderson a huge workload. He probably won’t handle it well, but giving him a graduate-school-level education against a Tom Izzo defense might help his offense evolve in February and March.
Does that seem reasonable? It leads to the heart of this discussion.
I think it’s a false choice, actually, to say that Wisconsin should either try to win this game, OR — on the other hand — give less experienced players some minutes, accept a 15-point defeat, and try to win in The Barn next Wednesday.
I think Gard can do both… but it would mean sacrificing a set way of doing things, which is so often the toughest thing for a coach to do.
The problem here is that Wisconsin basketball — a lot like Wisconsin football — has a time-tested way of going about its business. The Badgers, in both hoops and football, have carved out a very clear and obvious identity. Wisconsin football is about smashmouth power running and ball control. Wisconsin basketball is about hard-nosed man-to-man defense, fighting through screens and staying with cutters. Dick Bennett, Bo Ryan, and now Gard adhere to certain notions and representations of what winning basketball looks like. It is hard to break from that, and more precisely, it can be seen as weakness — a concession, a surrender — to break from that.
Yet, when a team is down to seven regular players (plus bench-warmers who might be considered for extra minutes), a coach is faced with a choice: Do I maintain my identity in the face of impossible circumstances, or do I try to teach my players alternative strategies to cope with the unique needs of a particular situation?
Here is what I am getting at: Greg Gard doesn’t HAVE to stick to his methods against Michigan State. He could, and to be sure, the decision would be reasonable. Play the less experienced players; eat a big loss; but develop the team for the rest of February with six whole weeks left until Selection Sunday. That is a perfectly realistic and fair way to approach Saturday. Wisconsin can give up one game so that the roster learns and grows for the many other battles which lie ahead. I can respect that.
However: What if Gard is willing to — GASP! — throw a junk defense at Michigan State? I know, I know — it seems like blasphemy and sacrilege at Wisconsin to do that. However, isn’t this PRECISELY how the Badgers can play Micah Potter 10 to 15 more minutes per game and minimize his defensive deficiencies? What if Gard slaps a 1-3-1 zone or a triangle and two on the Spartans to protect Potter and save him for the offensive end of the floor?
Gard is the torch-carrier, the man entrusted with continuing Bo Ryan’s ways in Madison… but does that mean he can’t ever pull out a junk defense in a crisis situation? He doesn’t have to play junk defense the rest of the season. Heck, he doesn’t have to play junk defense for the whole Michigan State game — he could bust out these alternative defenses for four-minute sequences between TV timeouts, then revert to normal man-to-man. The larger point is that Gard can be willing to try new things so that he can still try to win this game instead of punting on it and thinking solely about the future.
To be clear one last time, this isn’t about a “right versus wrong” approach. Gard is in an impossible situation against Michigan State. The Badgers will be expected to lose. Gard shouldn’t be buried if UW loses by a large margin. The real key with this team is to evolve and adjust, beginning with that Minnesota game next week. However, viewing this game as a choice between “do everything to win OR punt and move on to the Gophers” is a false one. Wisconsin CAN try to do a little bit of both, but it would require breaking from the mold.
Is Greg Gard willing to do that? The question is worth considering not just for this season, but for his larger tenure in Madison. If he wants to be his own man, not just the guy who received the baton from Bo Ryan, he ought to consider unique solutions to unique problems.