Tag: Greg Gard

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Many questioned whether or not Michigan basketball was for real or if its success was a product of an easy schedule. Well, Wisconsin learned the hard way that the Wolverines appear to be a legitimate Final Four contender.

The Badgers are no slouch, coming into the game considered as one of the Big Ten’s elite teams and one of the best in all of college basketball. It didn’t matter, however. The Wolverines did to Wisconsin what they had also done to Northwestern and Minnesota. Only, it was more emphatic.

Wisconsin found itself floundering after a tight game early, and the maize and blue pounced. From there, it was an avalanche, points racking up like snow cascading down from the mountaintop.

So, how did Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard respond in the immediate aftermath? He shared what he saw from the floor and why the Wolverines were able to take advantage of a team that rarely gets taken advantage of.

“I thought the two turning points were the two turnovers,” Gard said. “We had back to back with the turnover on the wing entry pass that we didn’t seal off the wing well enough to make a catch. And then right after that, I think it was a three-point game at that point in time, so they convert that and then we have a collision and I’ll have to look and see exactly what happened on it, the ball screen or dribble handoff where Trice got knocked down. I think he ran into his own guy with Reuvers but that ignited them. That combined with Potter not being in there I thought really gave them momentum and gave them some juice.

“Like I said, I’ve seen them do that with teams time and time again. We talked about it, try not to put yourself in those positions but also how do you respond to it? And that’s the disappointing thing is how we responded to it. Not only there at the end of the first half but also at the start of that second half. We got to the point we were taking a lot of jump shots, too many jump shots and obviously that led to easy offense for them.”

The avalanche metaphor is precisely how Gard actually sees it.

He made no excuses, noting that this is who Michigan is. If you give it an inch, it’s bound to not only take it for a mile but further down the highway until it’s transcontinental.

“Obviously credit to Michigan. The run they had in the first half where it went from three to double digits, whatever it was at that point in time, that was the turning point in the game,” Gard said. “The two fouls on Potter didn’t help in that regard in terms of what we were trying to establish inside and how he’s able to help us. But credit to them. I thought their aggressiveness, their physicality, were two things knowing that coming in, did not think we responded to that well. And got way out of character at the end of that first half and even into the second half with what we were doing offensively. It led to bad defense and obviously they’ve done that to a lot of teams. They get a little spark and it turns into an avalanche.”

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