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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 1, 2016Greg GardMadison, Wisconsin THE MODERATOR: Men's Basketball Head Coach Greg Gard is here. We will have opening comments and take questions. COACH GARD: Obviously, some of you guys I just talked with about ten hours, it seems like the, but going through the game film of breaking that down, and I take my time going through it and review a lot of things, but so far in the first half, obviously it's evidence on paper and stat line what Khalil Iverson did and the spark he gave us and how he was able to help us, but Vitto as well, coming off an injury and not practice for a couple days, and having to adjust to not starting for the first time all year, I thought he handled that exceptionally well, and then just to be able to grind it out. It wasn't pretty and the most -- in the fashion you would like to close a game out, but on the road I understand, having been in this league for a long time, that we don't get style points; we're not swimming and diving, and we're not in gymnastics. You find a way to get it done, and whatever it takes to close a game out. I thought we were pretty good from an offensive standpoint in the first half. We really have emphasized trying to minimize turnovers. To be able to that, and turn the ball over only three times in the first half, and then have some misqueues in the second half, where we turned it over 9 times, as I told the team after the game, what it showed me, the tale of two halves, just that stat alone, that you are very capable of minimizing this a lot more than what we have, so we've got to continue as we grow here and continue to get better, we've got to try to play a more complete game from that standpoint, and that will help us become more efficient offensively. But to be able to get to the free-throw line 20 times in the second half, be able close it out there was good, and to be able to handle that through foul trouble and a juggled lineup at times, I thought, was good. With that, I will take questions. Ask 'em all last night? Today you don't have any? Q. Before last night's game Khalil had a stretch of single-digit minutes and numbers. Did he earn more playing time? Do you expect to see more double digit minutes going forward? COACH GARD: I always go based on what I see in practice, and I never said anything before the game but leading up to the game, for the three or four days in between, Khalil had practiced really well, both on the scout team and when I brought him over with my group, on my side of the floor, so from that standpoint, I'm probably looking back not surprised that he played pretty well, because he had prepared pretty well. And I think that's always a thing with younger guys, if they -- they can improve. And I always say when you put value into practice, practice will put value into you, and I think he did that. He did a good job of emulating -- I think he was playing Kendrick Nunn at some points on the scout team, and then I would bring him over for a while with me, and then he would go back over. He didn't get caught up in whether he wore a white jersey or a red jersey, based on the scout team or being over with us in red, and he just kept trying to do the best he could for the team he was on. So from that standpoint, I thought he approached it the right way and thus he practice pretty well and he made the most of his opportunities. In terms of going forward, a lot of that is based on line-ups and match-ups, and I knew going into last night we would have to play smaller than normal, with Malcolm Hill being more of a perimeter player, playing at the 4. I wanted to match Nigel or Khalil with him, as much as possible, so that was somewhat was dictated by what I saw on film and what gave us the best chance offensively, and with Vitto's injury thrown on top of that made my decision a little easier. Q. What kind of identity do you think your team has forged since you took over? COACH GARD: Well, I think we've gotten better defensively. I think we've developed a toughness to us. I think we've gotten calloused a little bit, and we can handle some adverse situations better than we could six, eight weeks ago. I think we're starting to get a better understanding of who we are offensively and what we need to do, and in large part that is getting to the free-throw line and playing in the paint. We don't have a plethora of experienced, three-point shooters, but this team has strengths that are developing in other areas. I think Khalil, for example, his driving layup I just finished watching two or three times on how he read the angle in the first half is exactly right out of the drill we have been doing with the "drive to score" drill. They are starting to, as we as a staff pick out things that we feel are their strengths and implement those in practice and trying to accentuate those, they're starting to correlate that between practice and game and how to execute and when to execute and developing confidence. I think that's the biggest thing. This group has really grown, as I've talked about, with the culture and the closeness of the group, the cohesiveness, this group has come together tighter off the floor as well. Q. Illinois didn't foul much in the first half. Was it a matter of you guys were driving harder to the basket in the second half? COACH GARD: I kept asking the officials, aren't we getting fouled, somewhere, somehow? But, no, we didn't -- I thought early we took too many perimeter shots, especially the first five minutes, with the first media time-out, and then we got a little better with throwing the ball back inside. We needed to finish a little better. I thought they were more physical with Ethan than we had seen in the past, and him getting two fouls and getting out of sync kinda changed our dynamic, too; it also changed our lineup with playing Nigel more at the 4, changed our -- with three guards, we're not as post oriented, but I thought we did a better job of, once we started to recognize how they were going to play the team -- the person in the post, whether it's a double team or a hard help, we moved the ball a little bit better on the perimeter, and we were able to attack. Khalil got one of those, as I mentioned before, with the drive on the left lane line. Second half I thought we were a little bit better, we were a little more physical, more aggressive going towards the rim, and were able to drive through some of the contact and especially some cuts, we cut harder in the second half, drew some fouls off the ball. The nice thing I liked about that is we didn't get discouraged, with as many free-throws as we shot. And I knew we weren't going to stay at 36, 37 pace because that's an extraordinarily high number, but to not shoot any in the first half, fortunately our guys stayed true to who we are and didn't get discouraged and were able to get there more in the second half. Q. Greg, I think you were in here when Barry was asked about you. For you permanently has it been easy to stay in the moment and avoid thinking about all that stuff? COACH GARD: Yeah, yeah, because that's how I would operate no matter what, whether I have a three-month contract or a ten-year contract. During the season as a coach you bunker down and you focus on the next day. I just finished writing today's practice plan that we'll go through, and then I'll finish the game from last night, we will do our teaching clips tomorrow, we're going to shift our schedule a little bit and do another developmental day, because I think that's helped us with our younger guys this afternoon, and tonight I will lock in on Ohio State, having watched them. We have had common opponents with Illinois and Indiana here recently, so I've seen them and I know their personnel pretty well, having watched a lot of those guys in high school. They're a young team that's going through some things as well, and they have improved, but for me it's just about the next day and the next game. That's what I -- that's what I can focus on, because that's the most important thing right now for this team is for us to focus on what's next. Q. I wanted to ask you about your assistants. Has the job of your assistant coaches, has that -- has your perspective on the kind of job they do, has that changed since you took over as head coach and conversely now that you have Howard Moore on your staff who has had head coaching experience, how that has come into play in the last five or six weeks? COACH GARD: I think Howard brings a wealth of experience from a standpoint of being a student-athlete here, a former student-athlete here, assistant coach here, and as you mentioned a head coach at USC. He brings back a lot of experience from not only from his time here but his time watching us from afar. He understands how we operate day in and day out but he's also been really good about being suggestive, but not being overbearing in terms of when he does offer suggestions or things to think about; that's usually how he phrases it: Coach, here's something to think about. And there have been times I've said, okay, I thought about it enough, I'm not going to do that, or I've said, you know -- there is something he came into my office this morning with, that he had seen. He's close with Stan Van Gundy, obviously having played for him, been around him quite a bit, something that he did in practice to try to help our younger guys assimilate things a little faster, so I looked at that and I'll chew on that for a while and see if I want to implement it in practice, but they have all done a very good job of staying within their roles, being suggestive but not being overbearing, and I give them an open forum before the game, halftime. We're always watching for fatigue and substitutions in case I miss something with body language or facial expression to try to get somebody who needs a break. They're helpful with that and they will -- here and there they will throw out things to think about and some things we have gone with right away and other things haven't maybe aligned with where I was thinking, and I've said, no, we're not going to do that right now. So that relationship and that give and take has always been good but Howard has added -- as I mentioned before, to be able to add somebody of his experience and quality in late December was truly a huge addition for this program going forward, and obviously he's made a big impact already with not only our staff and players and very appreciative for him giving up his media journey and being able to join us back here. Q. Greg, you've had a lot of quality guards come through here during your time. Where does Khalil fit in terms of athleticism? He seems to have a lot of things he can do that jump off the page at up. Is he your top guy or where does he fit? COACH GARD: I don't know on the numbers thing I would have to -- we could compare him with some of the better athletes that have played here numberwise what he does in the weight room and vertical jump and things like that. I think with Khalil he's starting to continually figure out how the game -- how he can play the game and keep it simple. I think sometimes young players come in and think they have to make a big splash by the number of points they score, the number of rebounds they get, there has to be a statistical splash, and when younger guys figure out that I can make an impact by doing a lot of little things, diving on the floor, taking a charge, being the first to help a teammate get off the floor, being solid defensively, it's just that simple knock of a pass last night that he stole, jumped in between Malcolm Hill and whoever it came from on the wing and knocked it loose and took it to the other end, that was a spark! It's only 2 points, but we were kind of in a little bit of a rut offensively, and that got us going a little bit, and then his ability to move along the baseline. He got clean for two of those dunks behind the defense there. So just little things like that, that obviously his stat line jumps out, last night, but we have had other guys, as I mentioned, Aaron Moesch, you will look across the stat and it will say zeros until you hit the minutes, but how he has been able to fill his role has really helped this team, but getting back to your question about Khalil: Athletically, yes, looks the part is the part, jumps off the charts, and he looks like an NFL wide receiver when I watched him in high school. Looked like Chris Chambers looked. That's what Henry Mason told me, when he was in high school, just long arms and build and run and jumps but has to figure out and continually evolve in the skill set and also the intellectual part of the game, and that's where I think we are starting to see some of that growth. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Thanks, Greg. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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