The Wisconsin Badgers suffered a humiliating 90-60 loss to the No. 23 Nebraska Cornhuskers on Wednesday in a game that was tight for the first 15 minutes before the No. 23 Nebraska Cornhuskers eventually tied the game.
Wisconsin’s defense really struggled and it felt like their effort was a lot lower than usual as they suffered their worst loss of the Greg Gard era.
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After the game, the head coach was not satisfied, pointing to the defensive effort and the lack of character on that side of the pitch.
“We don’t have a defensive identity. We haven’t had one all year. So, we’re going to look for one and I’m going to find the guy that wants to defend.”
How exactly will Gard do this?
“Guys on the bench. They’re going to find out over the next nine days. We’ve had no defensive identity all year, and everybody’s excited about our offense, but for the most part it’s the other end of the floor that’s giving us trouble. Obviously tonight, you know, that’s credit to Nebraska. They beat us every way possible. There’s not another aspect of the game of basketball that they can’t kick our ass. They did it all.”
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Wisconsin already did that, replacing Austin Rapp with Aleksas Bieliauskas, which seemed like a good move early on.
There were some better moments, especially when Hayden Jones ended up on the field for the Badgers, but it took an ugly turn for the Badgers at the end of the first half.
“Maybe at the end of the day, I thought we had some better defense,” Gall said. “Hayden Jones was involved. He did what we wanted him to do and handle the screen. So I’ll watch the film and really evaluate it from that point on. But that’s not the case.
“We got off to a good start, but then offensively, specifically, I thought we did some good things early, and then we completely went away, stuff that was really good for us, and took bad shots, got them in transition, let them loose some 3-pointers. Then we cut back right away. Hoiberg got an open 3-pointer. Just consistent mistakes, and we’ve got nine days here to take care of things.”
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While this may be the more talented group Greg Gard has, there’s definitely a lot to figure out. Wisconsin has nine days off before its next game against Butler next Friday in Indianapolis. We’ll see how much they change along the way.
