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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: ST. LOUISMarch 17, 2016Greg GardSt. Louis, Missouri THE MODERATOR: Head coach Greg Gard is joining us. Coach, an opening statement. GREG GARD: Obviously extremely excited to be here in St. Louis. I know for our team and our program for the 18th consecutive year making an appearance in this tournament is extremely special and something we take great pride in. I'm very proud of our guys for how they've responded this year. I think our story has been told quite frequently in terms of how our players have responded and rallied, really, here in the last half of the season to be able to be in this position. Like I said, I'm extremely proud of what they've done and to get us to this point in time. We're excited to play again tomorrow night, and nice being this close to Madison, where hopefully, we'll have a lot of fans here and with that I'll take any questions. Q. I don't know if you call yourself a daydreamer, but when you're 9-9 and 1-4 and maybe you're having a moment when you can think: What do I want to get out of this at this point this season? What did you think could happen, and was there a moment when you knew it was going to change for the better? GREG GARD: I always thought when we were 1-4 that things were going in the right direction. Maybe it wasn't showing up in terms of the results or the scoreboard. But I saw things in practice and I saw things happening in games that I felt we were on the right path. Obviously having been around a lot of success over the years with Coach Ryan, I had a good plan in place and had a blueprint for how to approach the season and to stick to it. And as I've watched, obviously, Bo work a lot of times over the years, not deviating from your plan. I think that was the biggest thing to stay true to the plan, not flinch in the moment, and continue to work the process. We've talked about the process a lot with our team and not worrying about the scoreboard or the results, but making sure we practice the right way every day. We approach every day in itself, making sure that has the greatest value. I never worried about what was coming down the road. I just tried to focus on the day at hand and make sure we were using that to maximize to the max limits in terms of how much better could we get in that specific day. I think once that started to happen, I started to seeing more and more results and better progress in practice. A lot of people made their focus on the last minute or 30 seconds of games. When we lost at Indiana in the last 30 seconds, we lost to Purdue at home to start the Big Ten season in the last minute when they hit a couple of 3s, and Maryland, Trimble hits a 28-footer against us to win. I tried to focus more on the previous 55 to 65 possessions in those games and make sure we became more consistent in that realm, in that regard. And then as we got better in that span, then we started to have better results as we went down the last stretch and being able to close some games and obviously being able to win at home against Michigan State was a big confidence booster for us. I don't know if we played that much better than we did in other areas or other games but we were more consistent. I think that's the biggest thing. We just became more consistent and they gained confidence as time went on. Q. The teams you guys brought here the last couple of years were so good that if you didn't make the Final Four it might have been considered a bit of a disappointment. This year obviously being lower seeded, do you think there's a different mentality for the guys who were part of that, or do you think they go in thinking the same way? GREG GARD: I think they think the same way. We approach everything, whether it's non-conference or the league schedule, always trying to win the Big Ten first and then the Big Ten Tournament and then go as far as you can in the NCAA Tournament. So we've never changed focus, even when we had the team last year, with a lot of seniors and a lot of talent, a lot of experience. The mindset was always one game at a time and obviously our goal was to get to the Final Four and be able to win the whole thing. This group has the same approach. They'll take it one game at a time, understanding that we'll have to play very well in order to advance. But we had to play very well last year in order to advance. I don't think there's anything different in terms of the approach we take. Obviously our experience level is different. This is the first time we've never had a senior starter, nor do we have a senior in our rotation. So from that standpoint we've got to build really quickly or use the experience that they've gained in the last 32 games that we've played so far. So I think their mindset is that we're going to take this thing as far as we can and it's no different than any other team we've had. Q. Obviously you were an assistant to Bo Ryan for a good number of years. Were there any other head coaching job offers that came to you during that time and why did you turn them down if so? Was Wisconsin your dream job? GREG GARD: I'll answer your question in a backwards order. Every job I've had has been my dream job whether it was my first eighth-grade job back in Southwestern in Hazel Green, Wisconsin, or the job I had at Platteville High School as an assistant or with Coach Ryan at UW Platteville in Milwaukee, I tried to live in the moment and made the most of that specific day and that specific team. And I always figured if you did good enough job at the job you were at in the day you were in eventually the future would take care of itself. So for me, yes, I did have opportunities to go to other places, both as an assistant and as a head coach. But I always felt that the -- obviously you write down things on paper and you give away the pros and cons of career moves. Some are personal related and some are professionally related in terms of why I did not make the move. But never in the case or in the mindset that I needed to be at, be a head coach by X age years old. So I just tried to make the most of every team we had and try to give them my best and make sure their experience as student-athletes was optimal and good. And I think obviously it's worked out. I've been fortunate surrounded by a lot of good players, a lot of good coaches over the years. I'm the lucky one in terms of how this all ended up. Q. When it comes to flipping the switch, as your players talked about, going from having fun and enjoying the moment to being more serious, what do you notice that maybe we don't see manifest in a game, leading up to it? What do you notice from them? GREG GARD: I think their approach and how they've matured through the year is one thing that I've noticed. They're not maybe as giddy as they were maybe earlier in the year. I think some of that is maturity. I think our older guys have done a much better job of leading as time has gone on. And that's been a new experience for them. Not only do we have a lot of freshmen, we also have Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig and Zak Showalter and Vitto Brown in roles that they've never been in in terms of leadership. So not only do they have to deal with a new head coach, they also have to deal with a lightly experienced team, with not a lot of returning minutes, so to speak, and also have to lead a bunch of freshmen that haven't been through this before. So what I've seen through the course of the year is just a maturity level growth in a lot of areas. Obviously on the floor it's been evident. But that all started in the locker room. And I think it changed as our chemistry got tighter and our leadership started to mature back in mid-January to early February I think is where we really started to turn the corner. And it initially started with how those guys interacted and approached and communicated with each other in the locker room. Q. Quite a thing, Greg, to have you and Tom Izzo here together. Both programs, of course. But he's the dean in the Big Ten and you've got, I don't know if you have two weeks yet, without the interim tag? GREG GARD: No, I don't. Q. Have you guys had a chance to talk and has he had a chance to encourage you yet, and also I wonder just what you think of what he's done and continues to do? GREG GARD: I don't think I have enough time here to talk about Coach Izzo in terms of all the positive things that I think about him and what he's done. Obviously with his program. You look at this and compare, my position to his position over the last months and even years, an assistant that spent a lot of time or most of his career at one institution -- him at Michigan State with Coach Heathcote and me at Wisconsin with Coach Ryan, having never left our home states. He's from the UP. I'm from Southwest Wisconsin. So people drew a lot of parallels there. And Tom was very good over the years, not only the last three months, but the last five or six years, from the outside giving me a little advice on how he saw things maybe hopefully unfolding for me and what he went through when he was in my position in those years with coach Heathcote. So obviously I have nothing but respect for Coach Izzo. We haven't had a chance really to talk. When we played each other, we were more concerned about our respective teams. We've texted quite a bit back and forth. Hopefully he's got a team to coach and he's trying to advance, I'm trying to do the same thing with our team. I'll have a chance to really connect with him in the offseason and really have a chance to talk. We were just in the meeting a while ago with all the coaches and administrators. I think he's the dean in there along with Coach Boeheim was in there. But also I think it's myself and Archie Miller were the two youngest. So you're right, it hasn't been two weeks. That's the best loss we've had all year it was the loss of the interim tag. So like I said, I'm looking forward to hopefully connecting with Coach Izzo more in depth down the road. Q. You haven't played since last Thursday against Nebraska. Do you think the time off has helped you a little bit? GREG GARD: Yeah, I think it has. Because I don't have any other choice to answer it any other way. We took Friday off. We also took Sunday off and I think it was good for us to just get back and freshen up a little bit and rest up. We had had quite a stretch coming down with the road games we had played and who we had played and where in the last three, four weeks of the season. I thought we practiced very well the last three days. We'll have one more workout here this afternoon, a light one. But they've been sharp. They've been eager and excited and as I've told them, you've earned this. This wasn't handed to you. You've had to scratch and claw your way here and now we'll make sure we enjoy it and have fun. It's always the teams that I watch over the years that really make the most of this opportunity that are the ones that are loose and let it fly. So we're not going to reinvent the game here in 24 hours or the course of the week. We'll have to stay true to who we are and we're going to have to play very well to beat Coach Dixon's team. We've seen them on numerous occasions over the years, and we know what we're in for tomorrow night. Q. Just wonder what you think characteristically or personality-wise the difference between the team that we saw last year that had everybody laughing at press conferences and all that and, of course, was so good on the court. What's changed, what's different about this group? GREG GARD: Well, 21 years of experience is one thing. Four seniors, two fifth-year seniors in Dukan and Gasser and then Kaminsky and Jackson having four years and Dekker with three. That's the biggest thing. Obviously very talented, but also had a lot of experience and had been in a lot of scenarios. They had seen the ups and downs of a season. I think that was the biggest thing this group had to grow through. They hadn't seen a whole lot of adversity in terms of the college basketball season of having to handle a couple, even a few losses in a row or maybe things not going well. So that's the biggest thing. That group had been callused and weathered the storm over the course of time. That team, even though you saw it the year before, in 2014, go to the Final Four as well in Dallas, that team wasn't one of those that was an out-of-the-box, instantaneous team. That took three, four, five years to put together and grow together. So I think in some ways it's unfair to compare this year's team with that team because that team took a long time to incubate, so to speak, and mature, and there were maybe unfortunate circumstances with Gasser tearing his ACL and Dukan coming down with mono that gave them an extra year. That added to the last year's team, that extra year added at the end of the day. So that's probably the biggest thing is just all the experience that is different between the two. Q. Just while you're mentioning experience, Jordan Smith, of course, doesn't really play a prominent role in the starting lineup and checks in every so often. How much of an impact does he have in the locker room in terms of leadership and helping out these junior guys really get a grasp on the team? GREG GARD: He's been a voice of reason because he's been one of those guys that's come through the ranks and has had to endure a lot of things and he's watched a lot of things over the years in terms of the team. He was a roommate of Frank Kaminsky. He was very good friends with Kaminsky, or is good friends with Frank. So he saw what these younger guys had never been through, in terms of three or four years ago when the boat was rocking, so to speak. He had a string of a few losses together, how do we handle that, how do we not deviate, how do we not flinch. So I think his voice and his presence in the locker room has helped. Like, hey, guys, this is going to be okay. I've seen this before, stick to the plan. Don't fragment, stick together, and we'll be okay. And I think that's the biggest thing that Jordan has been able to do is help us kind of with the voice of reason and with the experience. Q. There's been so much talk already here about last year's team and the comparisons and all that. Unfair or not. But how much is this team just relishing the opportunity to kind of write its own history as this tournament gets started? GREG GARD: I think you look at the journey this team went on to get here. And I don't know, as I said back in Madison on Sunday at the selection show press conference, if we would have sold tickets for that press conference on January 15th and said, all right, today we're selling tickets for your seat on Selection Sunday in our press conference I don't think we would have sold out. I think we would have had leftover tickets. So from where they've come in two months from January 15th to March 15th is a tremendous credit to them. I can't be more proud of how they've responded and grown and they've created their own identity. And they had to. And they had to forge their own way, because like I said that 21 years of experience, along with a Hall of Fame head coach walked out the door. So they had to kind of find their own way, so to speak, and grow. And regardless of who was coaching the team, we knew there was going to be a growth spurt or a growth process that was going to have to take place. And for them to be able to weather the storm and when there was a lot of naysayers out there in December and January, well, this might be the team that doesn't quite get it done or doesn't continue the streak of 18 consecutive tournaments, which I find astronomical. It's hard to believe growing up in Wisconsin and I was 24 years old before I saw an NCAA Tournament team. From '47 to '94, am I right, '47 to '94, that puts me at 24. I went a long ways or a long time or almost a quarter of a century before I saw one. My kids have known nothing different than seeing Wisconsin in an NCAA Tournament and the football program in a marquee bowl every year. That's where I get the most pressure from is at home because they've never seen anything different. But to get back to your question, I'm happy for our guys because they did what a lot of people didn't think was possible. And to get to this point they've forged their own identity. They've written their own story, and hopefully we got a lot more yet to write. Q. I was wondering how Nigel's role has changed from last year and how he's matured like how different is he even now than he was a year ago? GREG GARD: The biggest thing is in the locker room for Nigel, and Bronson in that category, too, from the standpoint of we knew that his role on the floor was going to change. He was going to go from being the fifth, sixth, seventh most talked about player in an opponent's scouting report to being 1 or 1A. The biggest change was going to be how he would lead the locker room and how he was going to be from going from being the comedian at the press conferences to now somebody everybody was going to have to listen to, and how he was going to conduct himself and learn to be a leader in the locker room when the doors were shut, when he had 16 other teammates in there, and how he was going to learn to understand that every teammate is different. Some teammates you have to put your arm around. Some teammates you have to be a little more direct with, a little more vocal with. So Nigel has learned as the season's gone on how to be a better leader, and that's the biggest thing I think the change that he's made has been behind closed doors in the locker room of how to lead these younger guys. And he's done a tremendous job of growing into that role. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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