Wisconsin Badgers begin to regroup after looking "foolish" against Nebraska

MADISON, Wis. - In the immediate aftermath of Wisconsin's 90-60 thrashing at the hands of Nebraska, head coach Greg Gard was harsh with his team's performance but did reserve full judgment until he had the displeasure of reviewing the tape.

The final verdict? It was a soft performance.

"We got to play harder," Gard told reporters on Tuesday. "You can solve a lot of and cover a lot of warts if you play harder, and that's not something I think we did. When I watched it in person and going through the film, it was obvious. I felt we needed to just play with more bite to us. Good teams will make you look foolish if you don't."

Foolish is exactly what the Cornhuskers did to Wisconsin, outshooting them overall (54.1 to 34.3), on twos (71.0 to 46.9), threes (11-30 to 7-32) and free throws (13-15 to 9-11) in last Wednesday's one-sided affair.

It was a collection of errors with the Badgers being disconnected with their spacing and communication, resulting in leaving open driving lanes or failing to pick up backside cutters that all led to production at the rim. It wasn't a lack of physicality as much as it was a lack of aggression.

"When you don't play hard, it looks like you're not physical," Gard said. "When you play hard, your physicality comes out. You're just engaged more."

It's the third time this season the Badgers (7-3, 1-1) have failed to rise to a challenge. UW is 0-2 in road and pseudo neutral site games. Following UW's 13-point loss to TCU in the Rady Children's Invitational final, John Blackwell was honest in saying the Horned Frogs played like they wanted it more.

Sitting without a Quad-1 win, UW has a final chance to register a quality nonconference win when it faces Villanova (8-2) at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee Friday night. It's a game that could have deeper ramifications down the road, considering Bracketologist Joe Lunardi has the Badgers in his "Next Four Out" category in his latest bracket projections and TeamRankings.com gives UW a 59 percent chance to make the 68-team field.

Gard acknowledge that bringing in seven new pieces to the rotation impacts the continuity of a group, adding to the urgency of correcting mistakes to compete with a team like Nebraska, which five of its top seven players return from last season, a rarity in today's transfer portal era.

The one thing that Gard doesn't have an answer to is why Wisconsin didn't deliver the same intensity it did the week before. UW was crisp with its ball movement and solid with its defensive assignments that resulted in two relatively easy home victories over Northwestern and Marquette.

Level of play could have something to do with it. Northwestern and Marquette are a combined 12-10 and the Huskers are 11-0. Gard added that, despite saying postgame the team has lacked a defensive identity all season, he felt that Wisconsin had been "decently doing the right things " defensively.

Wisconsin has spent plenty of time during final exams peeling apart the problems. In addition to the defensive breakdowns, UW took 32 three-point shots against the Huskers and 15 were labeled by the coaching staff has bad attempts, the highest percentage of the season. The quick shots led to transition opportunity for Nebraska and a scattered defensive alignment that compounded Wisconsin's problems.

It's part of the growing process, according to Gard, who hopes it's a blip instead of a trend.

"It better be an anomaly," Gard said. "Do we not handle success well the week before? Do we not handle adversity well if they make a run on us? We don't punch back. We've got to mature and grow in those areas, and it starts with playing harder."

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