Wisconsin Badgers Thread

[MVP2110]

This loss is much more on AJ Storr & Tyler Wahl than it is on Greg Gard imo. Just not going to win when 2 of your best players are total no shows. Pathetic performances by those two

For people comparing Gard to Chryst, they really aren't that similar imo. The football program had fallen to where it was struggling to be .500 and make bowl games. Gard has won the Big Ten twice in recent seasons, was the Big Ten Tourney runner up this year and has mostly had success in the Regular season. He's also attacked the Transfer portal more(Klesmit & Storr) and has recruited better(3 straight 1st team Freshman players & landed Freitag who was one of the highest rated recruits in program history). It's fair to be disappointed in this result but Gard isn't going anywhere this offseason and he shouldn't be.

Come on man, nobody was ready to play tonight. The team was completely unprepared.

They absolutely came out flat initially, no doubt and Greg deserves blame for that. But after the first few minutes they essentially played even with James Madison. Honestly I think an underrated issue was Klesmit getting in foul trouble in the 1st half. Klesmit imo is their best two way player and losing him for a long stretch hurt them badly. But I mainly blame Storr & Wahl. They each were total no shows and missed easy layups, if they just make those layups alone Wisconsin is within 4 or 5

[BUCKnation]

Storr, wahl and chucky in the first half just didnt show up and huge negatives at best. Blackwell didnt have it either but at least he got to the line a lot.

19 turnovers is inexcusable.

[Mtsportsfan]

Jmu will lose by 20 on Sunday.

Anyways, worst case scenario for everything in that game. Just confounding that it seemed like the lights were too bright after playing so well in the conference tournament. They looked like a team that had never seen somewhat physical defense, even though they literally just played purdue and illinois.

Yep, didn't think they would out physical us. Out quick us, yes . We just choked tonight.

[MVP2110]

Here is what I will say. I wouldn't fire Greg Gard but I also wouldn't be super upset if they decided to go that route. I think Gard is a good coach but I don't think he's a great coach. I was upset with firing Budenholzer, this isn't that imo

[Ryan5UW]

This loss is much more on AJ Storr & Tyler Wahl than it is on Greg Gard imo. Just not going to win when 2 of your best players are total no shows. Pathetic performances by those two

For people comparing Gard to Chryst, they really aren't that similar imo. The football program had fallen to where it was struggling to be .500 and make bowl games. Gard has won the Big Ten twice in recent seasons, was the Big Ten Tourney runner up this year and has mostly had success in the Regular season. He's also attacked the Transfer portal more(Klesmit & Storr) and has recruited better(3 straight 1st team Freshman players & landed Freitag who was one of the highest rated recruits in program history). It's fair to be disappointed in this result but Gard isn't going anywhere this offseason and he shouldn't be.

Come on man, nobody was ready to play tonight. The team was completely unprepared.

They absolutely came out flat initially, no doubt and Greg deserves blame for that. But after the first few minutes they essentially played even with James Madison. Honestly I think an underrated issue was Klesmit getting in foul trouble in the 1st half. Klesmit imo is their best two way player and losing him for a long stretch hurt them badly. But I mainly blame Storr & Wahl. They each were total no shows and missed easy layups, if they just make those layups alone Wisconsin is within 4 or 5

I guess if this is your expectation of the program you can hang your hat on it.

[MVP2110]

Come on man, nobody was ready to play tonight. The team was completely unprepared.

They absolutely came out flat initially, no doubt and Greg deserves blame for that. But after the first few minutes they essentially played even with James Madison. Honestly I think an underrated issue was Klesmit getting in foul trouble in the 1st half. Klesmit imo is their best two way player and losing him for a long stretch hurt them badly. But I mainly blame Storr & Wahl. They each were total no shows and missed easy layups, if they just make those layups alone Wisconsin is within 4 or 5

I guess if this is your expectation of the program you can hang your hat on it.

I mean I honestly didn't know what to expect from James Madison so this isn't entirely surprising imo. They had an incredible regular season but didn't really play anybody worth anything so I had no idea how that would translate to the tourney. And as with any single game in basketball, weird crap happens. If Storr & Wahl play at their normal level I think Wisconsin wins this game and I think those two struggling had much more to do with the loss then anything Gard did schematically.

[trwi7]

The football program had fallen to where it was struggling to be .500 and make bowl games.

8-5
10-4
4-3
9-4
2-3

Other than the Covid year and the first 5 games before he got fired, when did Chryst struggle to get to .500 and make bowl games? Those were his last 4+ years.

Even if we give Gard a pass for the under .500 season 7 years ago because of departures or whatever, the previous 6 years have gone like this.

23-11, lost as 5 seed to 12 seed Oregon by 18
21-10, season canceled
18-13, beat North Carolina, lost to Baylor (this is his high water mark)
25-8, struggled with Colgate, lost to 11 seed Iowa State in Milwaukee
17-14 regular season/Big Ten Tournament record, finished 20-15 with loss in NIT semis
22-14 lost to 12 seed James Madison

That isn't any better than Chryst and is arguably worse.

[trwi7]

But after the first few minutes they essentially played even with James Madison.

This is a "they won 3 quarters against a good team" insane level of homerism that would make Jim Paschke proud.

[MVP2110]

The football program had fallen to where it was struggling to be .500 and make bowl games.

8-5
10-4
4-3
9-4
2-3

Other than the Covid year and the first 5 games before he got fired, when did Chryst struggle to get to .500 and make bowl games? Those were his last 4+ years.

Even if we give Gard a pass for the under .500 season 7 years ago because of departures or whatever, the previous 6 years have gone like this.

23-11, lost as 5 seed to 12 seed Oregon by 18
21-10, season canceled
18-13, beat North Carolina, lost to Baylor (this is his high water mark)
25-8, struggled with Colgate, lost to 11 seed Iowa State in Milwaukee
17-14 regular season/Big Ten Tournament record, finished 20-15 with loss in NIT semis
22-14 lost to 12 seed James Madison

That isn't any better than Chryst and is arguably worse.

It's considerably worse when you consider the schedules each faced. Wisconsin Football was in the west division and had zero conference championships under Chryst despite easy schedules most seasons. 2020 they went 4-3, 2021 they had a good record but none of their wins were over any particularly good teams(maybe Iowa) plus they got embarrased by Michigan & Notre Dame and lost the axe to Minnesota, and then in 2022 they got embarrassed by Ohio St & Illinois. Greg Gard's teams consistently have one of the toughest schedules in the country, has won the Big Ten twice, and consistently beat really good teams and rarely get embarrased. Again if they decide to move on from Gard I won't be that upset, I think he's a good but not great coach. But the basketball program hasn't fallen nearly as far as the Football program had.

[BroncoBuck]

It’s just crazy they were so **** bad offensively and Essegian couldn’t see the floor at all. Why on earth would he return next year? You have guys on the floor who can’t dribble or complete a pass.

[trwi7]

The football program had fallen to where it was struggling to be .500 and make bowl games.

8-5
10-4
4-3
9-4
2-3

Other than the Covid year and the first 5 games before he got fired, when did Chryst struggle to get to .500 and make bowl games? Those were his last 4+ years.

Even if we give Gard a pass for the under .500 season 7 years ago because of departures or whatever, the previous 6 years have gone like this.

23-11, lost as 5 seed to 12 seed Oregon by 18
21-10, season canceled
18-13, beat North Carolina, lost to Baylor (this is his high water mark)
25-8, struggled with Colgate, lost to 11 seed Iowa State in Milwaukee
17-14 regular season/Big Ten Tournament record, finished 20-15 with loss in NIT semis
22-14 lost to 12 seed James Madison

That isn't any better than Chryst and is arguably worse.

It's considerably worse when you consider the schedules each faced. Wisconsin Football was in the west division and had zero conference championships under Chryst despite easy schedules most seasons. 2020 they went 4-3, 2021 they had a good record but none of their wins were over any particularly good teams(maybe Iowa), and then in 2022 they got embarrassed by Ohio St & Illinois. Greg Gard's teams consistently have one of the toughest schedules in the country, has won the Big Ten twice, and consistently beat really good teams and rarely get embarrased. Again if they decide to move on from Gard I won't be that upset, I think he's a good but not great coach. But the basketball program hasn't fallen nearly as far as the Football program had.

Dude, you're holding no conference championships against Chryst and docking him for a weak schedule while ignoring that in order to win a conference championship they would have to beat a consistently top 5 team littered with 5 star recruits in Ohio State.

The basketball program's won two NCAA tournament games in the last 7 years. **** outta here with the program hasn't fallen as far as the football program.

[MVP2110]

8-5
10-4
4-3
9-4
2-3

Other than the Covid year and the first 5 games before he got fired, when did Chryst struggle to get to .500 and make bowl games? Those were his last 4+ years.

Even if we give Gard a pass for the under .500 season 7 years ago because of departures or whatever, the previous 6 years have gone like this.

23-11, lost as 5 seed to 12 seed Oregon by 18
21-10, season canceled
18-13, beat North Carolina, lost to Baylor (this is his high water mark)
25-8, struggled with Colgate, lost to 11 seed Iowa State in Milwaukee
17-14 regular season/Big Ten Tournament record, finished 20-15 with loss in NIT semis
22-14 lost to 12 seed James Madison

That isn't any better than Chryst and is arguably worse.

It's considerably worse when you consider the schedules each faced. Wisconsin Football was in the west division and had zero conference championships under Chryst despite easy schedules most seasons. 2020 they went 4-3, 2021 they had a good record but none of their wins were over any particularly good teams(maybe Iowa), and then in 2022 they got embarrassed by Ohio St & Illinois. Greg Gard's teams consistently have one of the toughest schedules in the country, has won the Big Ten twice, and consistently beat really good teams and rarely get embarrased. Again if they decide to move on from Gard I won't be that upset, I think he's a good but not great coach. But the basketball program hasn't fallen nearly as far as the Football program had.

Dude, you're holding no conference championships against Chryst and docking him for a weak schedule while ignoring that in order to win a conference championship they would have to beat a consistently top 5 team littered with 5 star recruits in Ohio State.

The basketball program's won two NCAA tournament games in the last 7 years. **** outta here with the program hasn't fallen as far as the football program.

I mean yes, Gard has won the Big Ten twice in the last 5 years while Chryst never won it so already right there Gard has accomplished more than Chryst ever did. On top of that while Gard had a bad year last year it was only one bad year and they bounced back again to have another good season this year. Now I also understand alot of this is I value the regular season more than most in college basketball. But I just personally have a tough time judging coaches too roughly in a tournament where upsets happen regularly in a game like basketball where weird one off results happen all the time.

[trwi7]

It's considerably worse when you consider the schedules each faced. Wisconsin Football was in the west division and had zero conference championships under Chryst despite easy schedules most seasons. 2020 they went 4-3, 2021 they had a good record but none of their wins were over any particularly good teams(maybe Iowa), and then in 2022 they got embarrassed by Ohio St & Illinois. Greg Gard's teams consistently have one of the toughest schedules in the country, has won the Big Ten twice, and consistently beat really good teams and rarely get embarrased. Again if they decide to move on from Gard I won't be that upset, I think he's a good but not great coach. But the basketball program hasn't fallen nearly as far as the Football program had.

Dude, you're holding no conference championships against Chryst and docking him for a weak schedule while ignoring that in order to win a conference championship they would have to beat a consistently top 5 team littered with 5 star recruits in Ohio State.

The basketball program's won two NCAA tournament games in the last 7 years. **** outta here with the program hasn't fallen as far as the football program.

I mean yes, Gard has won the Big Ten twice in the last 5 years while Chryst never won it so already right there Gard has accomplished more than Chryst ever did. On top of that while Gard had a bad year last year it was only one bad year and they bounced back again to have another good season this year. Now I also understand alot of this is I value the regular season more than most in college basketball. But I just personally have a tough time judging coaches too roughly in a tournament where upsets happen regularly in a game like basketball where weird one off results happen all the time.

Gard has done **** all in the tournament and hasn't even been great in the regular season. Chryst won an Orange Bowl and lost by a point in the Rose Bowl where his team got **** over. You sound like you only value the regular season in college basketball because his postseason record is complete ****.

[BroncoBuck]

Gard is living off the “what if” that was the Covid year tournament.

I wouldn’t even call tonight an upset, they were down the entire game. That’s a beat down.

[MVP2110]

Dude, you're holding no conference championships against Chryst and docking him for a weak schedule while ignoring that in order to win a conference championship they would have to beat a consistently top 5 team littered with 5 star recruits in Ohio State.

The basketball program's won two NCAA tournament games in the last 7 years. **** outta here with the program hasn't fallen as far as the football program.

I mean yes, Gard has won the Big Ten twice in the last 5 years while Chryst never won it so already right there Gard has accomplished more than Chryst ever did. On top of that while Gard had a bad year last year it was only one bad year and they bounced back again to have another good season this year. Now I also understand alot of this is I value the regular season more than most in college basketball. But I just personally have a tough time judging coaches too roughly in a tournament where upsets happen regularly in a game like basketball where weird one off results happen all the time.

Gard has done **** all in the tournament and hasn't even been great in the regular season. Chryst won an Orange Bowl and lost by a point in the Rose Bowl where his team got **** over. You sound like you only value the regular season in college basketball because his postseason record is complete ****.

The Orange Bowl win was the pinnacle of Chryst's coaching tenure and was awesome. Heck, I was a Chryst defender for quite a while based on those early seasons under him, but his program stagnated and then began to fall off. Gard has kind of had the opposite effect, his early teams weren't nearly as good in the regular season(they got a 7 & 8 seed but then pulled off tournament upsets to get to the Sweet 16 and everyone loved him). But his regular seasons got better and his tournament appearances got worse. He's been upset twice as a 5 seed, he got an unlucky break with covid taking away one of his conference championship teams and then Johnny Davis got hurt right before the tourney with his other conference championship team. He has the occasional down year as most programs do but he has had a lot of regular season success and has adapted in a way Chryst never did. Gard this year changed the offense and they had their most successful offense in a long time, he's attacked the Transfer portal landing guys like Storr & Klesmit, he's recruited fairly well landing 3 straight guys on the 1st team All Big Ten Freshmen team and has Freitag coming in who was one of the highest-rated recruits they had ever landed in program history at the time. Losing in the tournament sucks but I don't think judging coaches purely on tournament success is the right way to go considering how random it can be.

[ReasonablySober]

Gard is living off the “what if” that was the Covid year tournament.

I wouldn’t even call tonight an upset, they were down the entire game. That’s a beat down.

James Madison is easily the better team, zero doubt.

[Ryan5UW]

I mean yes, Gard has won the Big Ten twice in the last 5 years while Chryst never won it so already right there Gard has accomplished more than Chryst ever did.

So you’re going to compare a regular season championship against a sport that doesn’t have one? Basketball tied for the conference championship in years that they lost 30% and 25% of their conference games. You do that in football and maybe you make the championship game due to being in a weak division.

[MVP2110]

I mean yes, Gard has won the Big Ten twice in the last 5 years while Chryst never won it so already right there Gard has accomplished more than Chryst ever did.

So you’re going to compare a regular season championship against a sport that doesn’t have one? Basketball tied for the conference championship in years that they lost 30% and 25% of their conference games. You do that in football and maybe you make the championship game due to being in a weak division.

I mean yes? Both football and basketball crown conference champions and both teams were 1 of 14 in the conference. Gard won the conference twice, Chryst won it zero times. I don't get why fans seem to think winning the conference championship is a meaningless feat but losing a game in a single elimination tournament is the end of the world. If the basketball program falls to the point where they are consistently in the middle of the conference and continue to fail in the NCAA tourney then I'll jump on the fire Gard train, but for the most part under Gard Wisconsin has been one of the better Big Ten teams

[Allanon23]

Very disappointing end to the season, but its pretty clear from watching that JMU is not a real 12 seed. We got the worst possible draw for our opponent. Gard should be on a short leash. It's one thing to not win tournament games, it's quite another to not see development from players who have been with the program for 4 years.

Wahl looked like he hit a plateau after last season. Chucky Hepburn came in and looked like he could become our next great guard, but he never really developed much after his freshman year. Chucky was great defensively but he didn't give us much on offense at all this year, and Crowl is the weakest 7 footer I've ever seen. Whoever our strength coach is failed him big time. He came in skinny as a twig and he is going to leave skinny. I get that his frame may not be conducive to adding much size, but jesus. He got bullied all year inside.

Essengian was a B1G freshman pick last season but couldn't find any playing time after a horrible start to the season. Where was his development in the offseason? It truly doesn't feel like any of our players get better in their tenure. Remember when Duje Dukan went from unplayable water boy to a key contributor to our final four run? Who was our last player that took gigantic leaps over the years? Vitto Brown maybe?

[RiotPunch]

Gard had this team completely unprepared for JMU's pressure. Players were terrible, but Gard was panicking with his rotations 5 minutes into the game.

Not sure he'll be fired or not, but the way we got outplayed on every level is firable. That's not random, that's getting your ass **** kicked.