The Wisconsin Badgers rallied late in the season to win the Big Ten championship. Greg Gard rallied late in the season to win the Big Ten Coach of the Year Award from both the coaches and the media in the conference.
The votes from several Big Ten writers were disclosed on Monday, when Gard earned due respect from the media and coaches alike. Wisconsin’s eight-game winning streak — which catapulted a 6-6 Big Ten team on the NCAA Tournament bubble all the way to the top of the Big Ten — was enough to give Gard the deserved award. What also helped was that Penn State head coach Pat Chambers lost his touch in late February and early March, just as Gard was figuring everything out in Madison.
Penn State was in contention for the Big Ten title and stood in second place in mid-February, but beginning on Feb. 18 — when the Nittany Lions lost at home to Illinois — PSU dropped five games in a six-game stretch, including a loss to lowly Northwestern this past Saturday in the Big Ten regular-season finale. Penn State had been a No. 4 NCAA Tournament seed in bracketology, having won eight games in a row, but the late tailspin dropped the Nittany Lions several seed lines down the board, taking a little bit of the shine off their impressive season. Chambers is going to make his first NCAA Tournament appearance at Penn State, which still rates as a significant accomplishment for him. Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the Nittany Lions’ late slide. Compared against Gard’s ability to win the Big Ten championship with a phenomenal month of coaching (from Feb. 6, after the Minnesota loss, through March 7 against Indiana in Bloomington), Chambers’ body of work did not stand up.
Tom Izzo of Big Ten co-champion Michigan State, Mark Turgeon of Big Ten co-champion Maryland, Steve Pikiell of Rutgers, and Brad Underwood of Illinois all did really well this season. Yet, Gard made his final closing argument against Indiana, winning in Assembly Hall to not only give the Badgers a trophy, but also the No. 1 seed at the Big Ten Tournament. One could debate this award, much as one could debate any Coach of the Year award in any sport, or conference, or division. Yet, would anyone seriously debate that Greg Gard deserved this distinction? I find that hard to believe.