Wisconsin alums express support for the 2020 Badgers and their coach
What a journey the Wisconsin Badgers and Greg Gard made over the past few weeks. When they defeated Michigan State in the Kohl Center, they saved their season, preventing it from falling off a cliff. It was a huge win, but it was more a matter of survival than authoritatively asserting dominance and superiority.
This win on Thursday night against Michigan? This was what superiority truly felt like. This was not the Michigan State win, in which Wisconsin barely scored anything over the final seven and a half minutes but held on because the defense kept the Spartans in lockdown. This was a game in which Wisconsin committed only two turnovers in the second half, none in the final 9:29 of regulation. This was a game in which Wisconsin hung 81 points on a Michigan defense which held Rutgers and Purdue to a combined 7-of-34 shooting line from 3-point range in its previous two games, both on the road. Wisconsin went into Ann Arbor against a very hot team playing lights-out defense… and torched that defense for 40 complete minutes. In terms of shooting percentages from the field, 3-point range, and the free throw line, UW could not have asked for a better performance. The Badgers’ slash line on Thursday against the Wolverines was majestic: 54-48-80. Steph Curry would not do much better than that — maybe at the foul line, sure, but not on field goals and threes.
Wisconsin has transformed itself. You can’t now say the Badgers were winning games and scoring lots of points only because they were playing a lot of home games. They went on the road and dismantled Michigan’s defense. This was a conquest, not merely the survival we witnessed against Michigan State.
Proud Wisconsin Badgers who went through the program and know how resilient Greg Gard is had glowing things to say.
First, Jared Berggren spoke to the Badgers’ ability to endure their darkest moments, not panic, and find solutions in the midst of the many disruptions this team had to go through:
Josh Gasser, another beloved stalwart of Wisconsin hoops — one of many dozens of players who carried the torch forward from one team to another in this very prosperous century — also weighed in:
This season has, in so many ways, shown what makes Wisconsin basketball special. The Badgers — not just in 2020, but on many occasions over the past 20 years — will look very inelegant. They do try the patience of the fan base. Yet, after 28 to 30 games, they’re in the top four of the Big Ten, with a solid NCAA Tournament seed and a decent shot at the Sweet 16. They’re not always a Goliath, but they’re almost always an above-average team of hard-working athletes who figure out solutions to the problems which arise.
If not 99 percent, at least 95 or 96 percent of the 353 Division I programs in America would kill to have Wisconsin’s level of consistent success. This season has embodied how hard it is for the rest of the Big Ten to knock Wisconsin into the gutter. These Badgers have carried on a proud tradition in Madison, and the alumni of the program certainly recognize this.
Jared Berggren’s and Josh Gasser’s public tweets are a nod to these players, who — in several years — will probably commend another batch of Badgers who will be asked to sustain this winning culture even longer…
and will probably succeed in the attempt.
