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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 4, 2016Greg GardMadison, Wisconsin THE MODERATOR: Men's Basketball Head Coach Greg Gard joins us. We will have some opening comments, then take questions. COACH GARD: I think obviously the first time now for our guys to go on the road in league play where teams know each other a little bit better. Hopefully we have taken some steps forward from Purdue last week into Rutgers on Saturday. I think we're going in the right direction. I know the guys are excited about now trying to take this on the road. It's a huge challenge. Indiana is one of the best offensive teams in the country, with one of the best point guards in the country in Yogi Ferrell running the show, so we know it will be a hostile environment, but I know our guys are looking forward to it in terms of can we take another step forward and how are we going to handle the environment on the road and continue to grow as a team. Q. Greg, when you look at 3-point field goal percentage defense, is that a stat you pay a ton of attention to it? I know a lot of people don't believe in that, because they think there are only a certain number of things you can control with that stat, and the reason I'm asking is obviously Indiana is a very good 3-point shooting team -- COACH GARD: They shoot pretty well, yeah. Q. You guys are towards the bottom of the Big Ten in that category. What's your thought on that? COACH GARD: It also depends on the volume that you shoot. You can shoot a few number of three's and make a lot of them, your percentage looks really good, or you can shoot a lot of them and not shoot a great percentage, but you still want to be in that 33% range because then you're trying to be at 1-point per possession, so around 33.3%, somewhere in that range. It obviously depends on your opponent, who you're playing, how many three's you get, what your philosophy is offensively, how much you want to touch the paint, how your team is made up. This year's team is probably not as prolific from three in terms of the number of three-point shooters we have, so we strategically scheme a little bit differently to maybe not take as many when we don't have to. Like I said, I think everything is a little different. Indiana shoots a fair amount of them. I know they make 10 plus, maybe a few more at home in terms of makes. That's a big part of what they do, and it's a big part of how they play with a lot of the weaves and the dribble hand-offs and the ball screens, and the things that they do to try to force help. You know, Tom has done a great job over the years of changing how he's played based on his personnel. If you look back to -- if I went back through the scouting reports of when he was at Marquette, you see something totally different than what he's running now, and he's adjusted to maybe having four perimeter guys around a little bit more. They played a little bit different when they had Zeller. Every year you look to -- maybe you don't look to change your overall philosophy, and we have tweaked and morphed things through the years, too, based on personnel and where our strengths were, and when we were a little younger in an area, so we tried to shade toward experience. But obviously the three is a big thing, a big part of what they do, and it's not the only thing they do, they obviously can hurt you at the rim, and Bryant is a developing post. I think Bielfeldt has helped them, obviously bringing some experience in his transferring from Michigan, so they have a lot of weapons. They use a lot of guys, and they can hurt you in a lot of different ways. Q. Greg, two-part question. On Howard Moore, one, how nice was it when you needed somebody you could go to a guy who was comfortable with this program and, two, how has the transition been? COACH GARD: Anytime when it was December 16th or 17th, there when this whole transition happened, I knew that, number one, the availability of a lot of people was not going to happen because they were in other jobs. Number two, I knew that I did not want to bring somebody in that I had to put training wheels on and start from scratch. We were just prepared to go with just myself and Coach Paris and Coach Close, at that point. So to be able to have somebody like -- of Howard's capability and expertise be available, just ironic. I said it before the holidays, it was an early Christmas present for our staff, and I told the team the day that I introduced them to him, and a lot of them knew of him before that, but I said our program got better today by the addition of Coach Moore. Just all he brings from being a student-athlete here. He knows where every building on campus is. He can probably give a better campus tour than I can, in terms of his knowledge and expertise on campus. He lived it as a student-athlete, he was here as a coach, he knows how we do things and our system and our foundation that we have in place and our culture; he understands that. He also got away and got other experience as a head coach, and even though it didn't work out well for him at USC, I think he's been great for me, in terms of just knowing what I'm going through and what's forthcoming. He tips me off on a few things at times that until maybe you go through them for the first time, you don't quite see it coming or aren't quite sure how it's going to play out. But I think he's been a great addition and in all aspects. He's been great for the staff, he's been great for our players, and obviously I haven't come across anybody that has more of a passion for the University of Wisconsin than Coach Moore. Q. Coach, you're about three weeks into your new slot, your new position. How do you think the transition has gone for you? How has it may be progressed or evolved in a different way than maybe you expected? COACH GARD: Well, I don't think anything is different than what I expected. There's really been no surprises. Everything that has happened or decisions I've had to make really have -- I expected to have to make those type of decisions, so there really hasn't been anything that caught me off guard, no pun intended! I think the transition has gone really well. Our players have been great, and that's from day one that first -- even the first few minutes after Coach Ryan announced his decision to them and Coach Alvarez talked to them, I got a chance to take the floor. I made it about the players, because that's what this is about and they're the most important piece of this program and always have been and always will be, so I wanted to make sure they understood that we were here for them, and we were going to be here in the transition. Some of them -- obviously it was shaking, but it wasn't upsetting from a stand point of they knew we were going to take very good care of them, and they trusted us, and we have continued to build that trust, and obviously my responsibility has changed, but my relationship in terms of my ability to communicate with them and talk to them and help people work through things -- and they're all different. I can't talk the same way to Nigel Hayes that I can to Bronson Koenig, and same, different from Zak Showalter to Ethan Happ. They're all different, and they always have been. Going back through the players that we have had over the years, that's where the personal relationship comes in, and you figure out what's the best way to communicate. Some learn better by video, some learn better on the floor, some you really have to talk a little more deeply to, others you have to make it short and sweet and move on. So I think it's gone as well as can be expected, and in large part due to obviously how our players have handled the transition and the people that have been around me with our support staff, my coaching staff, and everything that's involved. It's not one person that does this, and it's not a one-person program. There's a lot of people that have hands on deck with this operation. Q. I think most players would like to say they give the same amount of effort in practice no matter what, but have you seen a new energy, a new purpose in some of the guys that are getting a chance, playing first-half minutes for the first time maybe in their career, and do you see that as a positive? COACH GARD: I see that as a positive to answer your second part first, but I think anytime there is an opportunity for a young man or a student-athlete in any sport, that's why they're here, they all -- they didn't come here to sit on the bench forever. They all want to work toward a goal and obviously that's trying to help the team playing games, and obviously they have a valuable contribution they make in practice every day with the scout team, but at the same time they know they want to keep working toward what's going to be next and eventually get into position where they can have minutes on the floor, and I didn't just start handing out minutes just because I wanted to play more guys. The guys that are playing, practice pretty well. It probably got -- my hand got shown a little too -- earlier in the plan in the Green Bay game, with Showalter and Koenig getting two fouls, so I had to play Jordan, and obviously he had a couple of miscues early, but I thought once he got through that, and I've always thought that with younger players. You let them play through a couple of mistake, not that you're going to let them go hog wild with mistakes, but you let them gain a little confidence, and they have to fail first sometimes in order to succeed. So for him to go out and turn the ball over a couple times -- and I didn't have a choice. I had to play him because I couldn't put Zak and Bronson back in at that point in time I felt with two fouls in the first half. I think that's one example of how somebody has grown through this a little bit, and he's nowhere near where he can be. I think there are still times where I have to play traffic cop in practice and pull him over for driving too fast. He goes 80 in a 55 at times with the ball and we need to slow him down, and he's learning that, but the best teacher of all I found over the years is experience. I can talk about it as a coach, our staff can talk about it, we can show stats, we can show video, we can drill things, but the experience is still the best teacher. And sometimes you get baptized by fire, so to speak that you go in and make some mistakes, and I think other guys have found that, too. Alex has come in and played well at times, you know, Charlie -- my rotation really isn't set from a standpoint I know who is going to go when, it's usually on gut instinct and what I see in the game and what we need. Sometimes I'll sub based on somebody that needs to come out, sometimes I sub based on what I think we need and what somebody can bring, and I thought that's what -- on Saturday, I thought Jordan Hill could give us a little spark, so I put him in. It wasn't something I saw on the floor that I didn't like from the other guys so much, as it was I thought we needed a shot in the arm, and that's from different guys at different times. I hope they like it. They're working. They definitely have -- we have changed practice somewhat. We practice similar, but there are some things that are different and they practice very hard. That's one thing I always have asked of them, we're going to play hard, we're going to play smart and we're going to play together. For the most part we have played hard most of the time in games, and there are still times I find we get stagnant, and I think we're still working on playing the smart all the time and obviously still trying to come together as a team. Q. Have you had any interaction with Bo? Just curious to see if he's giving you space, have you felt the urge to reach out to him and bounce things off him at all? COACH GARD: He's texted, pretty much before every game, and then he's called me after each game, but he said from day one, he said, "You got my number; I'm not going to bug you. If you need anything, call me." I did talk to him after the Purdue game, and we talked about what he saw and what I saw and we both were right on the same page. I think, you know, he's watching from afar in terms of on his TV, but he said, "Hey, you" -- he told me right away, "You know what you're doing. Go do it. Don't worry. If you need anything, I'm always here; otherwise, I'm staying out of your way." Q. Greg, you guys have had success recently in Bloomington. What makes that such a difficult place to play? COACH GARD: Well, they've always had very good teams for the most part, that's in large part what makes a place difficult to play, and that's what made our place difficult to play in for teams through the years, is the guys who run around in a jerseys usually do a pretty good job. Obviously they're passionate about basketball. They have a longstanding history in that program that goes way back, even before Coach Knight, and they're passionate from the standpoint of how they fill it up, and they're loud. The configuration of the arena probably makes it louder than normal based on how the stands are configured, and the bleachers and the seats and everything. It starts with having a good team and obviously you have a fan base like theirs that has a longstanding history. I can go back through Indiana history I watched growing up, but I always pretended I was Steve Alford out in the driveway. I used to have hair like him, but that's obviously changed! He was playing there obviously during my high school years and that's somebody I tried to emulate. But I think you look across the conference and you're going to see a lot of places that are tough to play, regardless of size, of how many people are in there. It's in large part due to the players on the floor. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Thanks, Greg. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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