Greg Gard is a good coach. Wisconsin has generally continued to do well after the departure of Bo Ryan. No, this isn’t the Frank Kaminsky-Sam Dekker standard of performance, but those were remarkably great and unique Wisconsin teams. The Badgers shouldn’t expect to be a top-two NCAA Tournament seed most years. They aren’t that kind of program. Gard has, on balance, done a decent job of keeping Wisconsin in the national conversation and guiding the Badgers to the NCAA Tournament. If the season ended today (Saturday, January 25), Wisconsin would be in the Big Dance.
Gard isn’t Bo Ryan, but then again, who is? Wisconsin might be able to do better than Gard, but it could EASILY do a LOT worse. I wouldn’t call Gard a great coach, but he is solid. He deserves credit for what he has achieved in Madison.
Now, with that point having been noted — having been fair to the current coach of the Badgers — I can then say this: Gard has to give Micah Potter more minutes.
Writers criticizing coaches is often a very slippery and tricky subject, because I’m just a blogger with a computer keyboard. Gard is an accomplished major college basketball coach. He knows the finer points of the sport, and I don’t. He is the expert, I am a comparatively less educated commentator. I’m not going to be expansive and persistent in telling Gard or any coach how he should do his job.
Once in a while, though, a particular decision or topic becomes so obvious as a coaching deficiency that it simply MUST be mentioned. Think of the Seattle Seahawks not trusting Russell Wilson to throw the ball more. (That’s good news for the Green Bay Packers, but I raise the example because it is such an obvious flaw in the Seahawks’ methods and thought process.)
Think of Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers not using his lefty relief specialist, Adam Kolarek, to face Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals in the eighth inning of Game 5 of the National League Division Series.
Think of Matt LaFleur punting on fourth and one at midfield in the first quarter against the 49ers in the NFC title game, which I wrote about.
Coaches can be very good — even great — yet still miss some very obvious decisions.
For Gard and Wisconsin basketball this season, we all know what that one glaring flaw is: Gard isn’t playing Micah Potter more.
This is absurd, and I don’t see how it is defensible: Potter has played no more than 13 minutes in three of his last four games. He played 20 minutes in the one game involving more than 13 minutes. Total minutes in the last four games: 58. Average minutes per game: under 15, at 14.5 minutes per game.
Come on.
How can that be allowed to happen?
Potter scored 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds when he was given a larger allocation of minutes — 27 — at Penn State a few weeks ago. Potter was a beast in that game, helping Wisconsin grab a quality road win.
How can Potter get just 13 minutes against Purdue on Friday? He scored 11 points in those 13 minutes. He has had several box scores this season in which he came very close to scoring one point per minute played.
What is the issue here? What is it all Badger fans are missing? Potter’s late entry into the season due to the NCAA’s bullsh** meant that he was physically fresh. If anyone on the roster can handle more minutes, Potter should be able to carry the workload unless we’re missing something here.
Gard has said he goes by feel to find the right lineup combinations on the floor. We can debate various bench players getting more playing time, and we can also debate how to mix the current starting five with the bench in various ways, but not giving Potter at least 22-25 minutes per game at this point seems completely removed from reality in terms of bringing out the best in this team.
Let’s give Gard the benefit of the doubt here: He obviously sees that Potter isn’t a 30-minutes-per-game player. He obviously thinks Potter is more effective in short bursts. Fine. He might be right.
However: What if Potter plays in MORE short bursts each game? What about giving him, say, seven minutes to start the game, seven minutes late in the first half, and seven minutes midway through the second half? That’s 21 minutes.
Gard could give Potter seven minutes midway through the first half, seven minutes to start the second half, and seven minutes in crunch time, all spread out without asking him to play 15-20 continuous minutes. He could get 21 minutes without being kept on the floor too long.
Why haven’t we seen more of that? While other Wisconsin reserves struggle to a much greater extent, Potter somehow gets fewer minutes than some of his bench mates in a number of games.
Think of it this way: Sure, Potter might not be a 30-minutes-per-game player, but let’s at least see if he can be a 23-minutes-per-game player.
Right now, he is a 15-minutes-per-game player, and Wisconsin’s performances on the road have deteriorated relative to the monster Penn State game Potter dominated.
Greg Gard knows a million more things about basketball than I do. I have no desire to call him a bum or a below-average coach, because he IS a good coach. I can simply note that every now and then, quality coaches have these bizarre and baffling blind spots.
Micah Potter is Gard’s blind spot. Gard needs to see the light, hopefully before the Badgers lose more games and endanger their NCAA Tournament position.