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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: PHILADELPHIA

March 24, 2016

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard. Questions?

Q. Back during, early this season when you were 9-9 and 1-4 in the conference, what one thing changed that you saw in your team, outside of Nigel Hayes coming out and challenging his team? But what, on the court and also from an emotional standpoint, did you see in your team, after that?
GREG GARD: Well, the biggest thing was the chemistry in the locker room. And that grew immensely during that time from late December through the first part of February. I think with losing so many guys from last year, with four seniors, two of them being fifth-year guys that have been in the program a long time and Sam Dekker leaving early, we just had a lot of shoes to fill and a lot of roles to establish yet. And it took us a while to grow through that.

And I think all those adverse moments we went through early in the year helped fortify and establish our identity and roles of everybody on the team, and it just took a little while for that. But the biggest thing is the locker room, how that's grown, come together, the chemistry that's evolved there. And that eventually started to show itself on the floor.

Q. The emotional roller coaster that you've been on this year, this whole process, have you allowed yourself a few minutes to look back and breathe and appreciate everything? And kind of where is your head right now with all of this?
GREG GARD: I haven't really. There's been so much that's encompassed the past year, really going back to, you know, the Final Four last year and that whole run, into the spring with my dad and that whole journey with him with cancer. And then obviously everything that played out in December with Coach Ryan retiring. And it's been a whirlwind. Someday maybe it will be in my book.

But it's been surreal. Everything has happened so fast and there have been so many events that -- it's been the worst year of my life and it's been the best year of my life rolled into one. So hopefully we've got a couple of more weeks left in us here, and weekends. Then at that point in time, maybe in May, I'll be able to sit back and really reflect on it. But fortunately these guys have kept me busy so I don't have to worry about looking in the rearview mirror right yet.

Q. Can you talk about Notre Dame and the matchup there and what stands out about them and your biggest challenge facing them?
GREG GARD: Obviously Mike's got a great team. Seems like every year nobody talks about Notre Dame in the Selection Sunday or that first week, but you get to the second weekend, there they are. I think he's done a tremendous job of really identifying the type of student-athlete he needs at Notre Dame to fit to his system. And much like us, the names change, the numbers change, but the production in terms of what they do on the floor together and how they grow together, their ability to develop players, I think, doesn't change. And I think there's a lot of similarities between the two programs.

Obviously they've had stars over the years with Harangody and Murphy, and now they've got Demetrius Jackson, and the guys they had last year, and we've had ours over the years too. But I think just the consistency has been the biggest thing I've admired from afar. And Mike's been terrific every time I've run into him. Haven't seen him yet this weekend but he's actually going to be our keynote speaker at our Coaches Versus Cancer gala in May, that we raise a lot of money for the American Cancer Society for. But I think just that, how he's done it year in, year out -- the matchup, obviously, starts -- whenever you have a really good point guard you always have a chance. They have a terrific one in Demetrius Jackson. And then the other -- how Auguste has developed through the year, how Beachem is shooting the ball for them, what Vasturia does for them. So, you can go through the lineup. Much like us, they've had different guys contribute and help them in different roles throughout the season, help them grow. For us, we know we'll have to be very good.

And obviously this time of year, as I mentioned last weekend, the average and poor teams are on spring break or their coaches are playing golf or recruiting. And we're fortunate that we're still playing and hopefully have, like I said, a couple more weekends left in us.

Q. Coach, I'm sure the team was prepared for Coach Ryan to leave at the end of the season because he announced retirement. How do you game plan for what happened, and what was the first thing you thought that you had to do to pull this thing together when Coach retired?
GREG GARD: I think the biggest thing, the first thing I thought is I had to go back to what I believed in and what my instincts were, and I felt we needed to tweak some things offensively a little bit. We went back to an old friend and the swing offense. And it really helped us, not so much from the swing per se, but the spacing and the movement away from the ball was something that we needed to get better at.

Part of it was the youth that we had. We didn't have a group that had played a lot of basketball together. We had a lot of growing to do. So that was part of the challenge. But I think, I just -- they always say do what you know and know what you do. And so I really trusted on the last 23 years of experience with Bo and went back to what I really believed in and kept it simple and really stayed in -- I talked a lot both to our team about the process and not worrying about the results, not worrying about the scoreboard. I get that from Nick Saban in several of his books that I've read.

But not worrying about what was going to happen next week or next month, just focus on our practice today. And we had to change some practice habits. We had to develop some practice habits. And I think that started -- that's where it started. It was really drill by drill, possession by possession, in practice, and eventually that started to form better habits in the game. Even when we started 1-4 and 9-9, I saw a lot of good things happening. I saw a lot of things happening very positively in practice. Everybody focused on the last 18 seconds against Maryland when Melo Trimble hit the 25-footer against us, or the two 3s that Purdue hit in the last minute to beat us or our last possession at Indiana where we turned it over and they hit free throws to get a larger lead. But I saw a lot of good things happening. It was a matter of getting better in those first 50 to 65 possessions of the game. So the last possession of the game maybe wasn't magnified or we were even in better position.

And then once we had the win against Michigan State, I really think that gave us confidence to -- it gave us -- it reaffirmed what we were doing. I always believed in it. I knew it because I had lived it through the years with different teams and watched teams go through growing pains. We didn't have anybody in our locker room that had gone through ups and downs. You were 66-12 in the last two years, so there's Hayes' and Koenig's freshmen and sophomore years -- two Final Fours, 66-12. That's not the normal college basketball athlete's experience. They'll usually have to go through some form of adversity, and this was the real first time that the boat had been rocked in two years. So we had to grow through that a little bit.

Q. Piggybacking on what John was asking about the swing, 30 years ago a lot of people ran patterned offenses -- now not so much, a lot of high-ball screens and flat 4s. Do you have any kind of overarching philosophy about why you like running the swing or any patterned offense compared to just basically rolling the ball out and letting them go?
GREG GARD: Well, I think the one thing, it helped our younger guys. Two things it helped establish for us -- it put Hayes and Happ in their comfort zone on the block. And it also gave us better spacing away from the ball and gave them more room to operate. The second thing was it gave all our younger guys a comfort level -- a continuity offense helped them, put them on track, so to speak, and allowed them to develop within it. We break off the pattern. We're still not -- we still are a little robotic in it. And that will take time as we run it through the summer and into next year. As they become more accustomed to it in the offseason.

There's a lot of motion concepts within it. It's basically ball-side triangle, and we have options that we play out of the ball side and we have options that we play out of the weak side. So from that standpoint, trying to get to the free-throw line was key for us, and we did. We were able to get there a lot through that stretch in January and early February. I think that helped -- this team is different than last year's team in terms of how they score and how they can score. So we had to manufacture other ways and part of that was trying to really touch the post and play inside out. And that resulted in us getting to the free-throw line more and it also resulted in getting better looks from the perimeter and better outside shots, we were able to play inside out and take better 3s than what we were taking in the year.

Q. Did your guys buy in quickly?
GREG GARD: Yeah, they did. I really felt -- this has been as seamless a transition as I can -- I don't have anything to compare it to. But for me, personally and how the team has responded, how they've grown, they've really been -- from day one they understood what my plan was. It took us a little while, maybe, to take steps towards that plan from an everyday standpoint.

But the coaches that I've talked to over the years that always kind of forewarned, like, hey, it's hard to take over for a legend, it's hard to step from an assistant into a head coach's role. And one that's advised me a lot has been Tom Izzo, what he went through taking over for Heathcote. So for me, really, having nothing to compare it to, it's been very easy, and it's in large part because of what our kids have done, what our players have done. They've been phenomenal from day one.

Q. Notre Dame has a lineup of five double-digit scorers. How do you plan to defend something like that?
GREG GARD: It will be what we do as a team defensively. And we'll have to be very good in transition. We're going to have to be very good in the gaps in terms of taking away dribble penetration. We obviously have got to get out on shooters. We'll have our hands full with Auguste inside and Colson inside. I don't think you look at it saying there's going to be one specific key.

Last week we grew as much defensively as we had all year in the two games against Pittsburgh and Xavier. And hopefully that experience and developing that mindset and that maturity -- and understand this is the first time in 15 years we have not had a senior starter or senior player in the rotation. So our maturity level, we've had to expedite that through this season. I think last week we took a huge jump, especially on the defensive end. We had 60 days ago we couldn't defend like we did last weekend. So our toughness level and our commitment to the defensive end has grown exponentially in the last two, three weeks, but really showed its face last weekend.

Q. As you know, Bo was born around here. Delaware County.
GREG GARD: Right down in Chester, a little north of it.

Q. Right down the road. A lot of the players he recruited -- and also that you talked about that seamless tradition, that's gone from him to you -- do you still feel like Bo is like a part of this whole thing? And also do you think that -- do you want to be back next year? Do you think you deserve to keep coaching this team after this year?
GREG GARD: Did you know I signed a contract already?

Q. No.
GREG GARD: Yeah, they actually gave me a five-year contract about three weeks ago. I always had a one-year contract. I thought, wow, I saw five years on that thing, where do I sign? Interim tag -- the best loss we had all year was the loss of the interim tag. That's our best loss in the last three weeks.

But Bo is a part of this program. Obviously he's been a huge part of not only the University of Wisconsin's basketball program but the fabric of basketball within the state of Wisconsin. Obviously the time that he spent there and helping the game grow and develop from his time at Wisconsin prior from '76 to '84 as an assistant, and then to Platteville and then to Milwaukee and then back to Madison. So he has a huge piece -- he's on The Mount Rushmore of basketball in the state of Wisconsin. So that will always -- obviously I'm indebted for him. He saw a young college kid 25 years ago or 23 years ago and said, hey, do you want to get into this profession? And I did at the time and he gave me a great opportunity, and obviously I'm very fortunate and appreciative of that.

Q. Do you find it maybe poetic, maybe ironic that the year he does retire that you guys are here in Philly in the area where he's from? And maybe what does playing in this area mean to your guys because of that?
GREG GARD: I haven't talked to our guys about that. And they obviously know. They've heard all the Chester stories. I promised I wouldn't recite any of them this weekend for them. I'd tell them anything they want to know about Cobb but nothing about Chester. You know, I think it's ironic. The last time I was here was, coincidentally, for Butch Ryan's funeral, that we flew out, myself and the seniors at that time, I think it was the 2013-14 season. Our seniors came out for Butch's funeral. We got a chance to get a little tour of Lincoln Financial. We couldn't get in this building, it was closed. They had something going on -- a concert or something that night. The Phillies were in the playoffs. We saw the field there.

So that was the last time we've been in the area that I've been here. So it is -- it's ironic, coincidental that we happen to be in Chester, his hometown.

Q. You've said that that shot that Bronson made was one that was actually drawn up and everything. Could you talk about that, and also about his sort of like wanting to be in the moment, wanting to take that kind of shot?
GREG GARD: Well, I don't know if I drew it up and said run to the corner and shoot a step-back 24-footer. Our players make plays. And Bronson hit an unbelievable shot, probably one of the best shots in Wisconsin basketball history or obviously it's the most fresh in everybody's mind. But the players are the ones that made that happen.

We were able to -- it was Nigel's idea to advance instead of taking the timeout. And I said, yeah, let's do it. And so we got it to half court and then obviously they make the plays. You put them, give them an idea of the plan you want to have, a couple of options with it, and then it's a credit to Bronson and Ethan on the pass and everybody else for doing their job within it to make that happen.

Q. Just his fearlessness.
GREG GARD: He's been always like that. I recruited him since he was a freshman in high school at La Crosse Aquinas. I've seen him take a lot of big shots. He hasn't made every big one that I've seen him take, but you have to have a confidence inside of you. You look back at the point guards we've had over the time at Wisconsin -- Travon Davis, Devin Harris, Jordan Taylor, Traevon Jackson hit a lot of shots for us. I can go through and name games that they hit shots in the last ten seconds or big shots that were tide-turners in games. And you always want to have your point guard with that type of mentality. And Bronson obviously has that.

Typically if you look across college basketball you have the ball in a guard's, in a point guard's hands, and I'm glad that he's on my team I know that. I wouldn't trade him. But how he's grown, he's one of the -- his growth this year has been kind of a microcosm of how our team has grown. He was scuffling a little bit early in the year and scuffled the last couple of weeks. But he's a very confident kid that believes in himself and believes in his teammates.

And, like I said, it's nice to see a kid like that that's worked really hard, and that's not the first time I've seen him hit big shots. I have a lot of confidence in him that -- I didn't know if it was going to go in from the corner. I'm not going to be that prophetic and say I predicted it. Like I said, you always like to see -- I've always told the kids that -- our guys, March is your month, it's a player's month because of what goes on. We kind of sit back and hopefully steer them in the right direction, but it's neat to watch them go through that and live through this experience with them.

Q. In what ways have you seen Ethan grow and kind of become more comfortable with his role? And also I think Frank Kaminsky used to joke about, jokingly complain about his intensity in practices. What was he like and is he still like that this year?
GREG GARD: He's mellowed a little bit. He's matured a little bit. Frank could get under a lot of people's skin. He could get under my skin. He could get on everybody else's skin. And Frank just had that way about him, that personality. And it was always -- he liked to have fun. And he would poke a little bit at people and ruffle their feathers. And Ethan would do it right back to Frank, so that's -- on the court, in terms of how physical Ethan would play.

He'd foul Frank a little extra hard once in a while and upset Frank. But Ethan has really matured in terms of his consistency. And I think I really saw him turn the corner more after our game at home against Nebraska where he really struggled. I think he only scored two points. He was in foul trouble, just wasn't his night. And typically with freshmen you see a lot of peaks and valleys. You see a good night where they look like they've been there three or four years. And then you see, like, they just walked off of a high school gym and into the college game.

I think his consistency level has grown over the last month and a half. I think he practices at a higher rate for a longer period of time. And he's nowhere near he can be. I think he's still scratching the surface. And in large part that will be due to consistency and as he gets stronger and adds more pieces to his game. But I think that maturity level has grown quite a bit here in the last month.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Ethan Happ, Bronson Koenig and Nigel Hayes. Questions?

Q. Nigel, V.J. Beachem from Notre Dame said you played on an AAU team together. What's your relationship with him and do you have any specific memories of being a teammate of his?
NIGEL HAYES: I was just texting him actually a second ago. I'll probably go into Notre Dame's locker room and say what's up to him. If that causes any trouble, I've got my guys with me. We'll settle that quickly. We played AAU together. It was a great time. We won a lot of games, that's always fun, winning is fun. His family was great. Loved his dad. His dad was a great guy. We just had fun. When you're playing AAU growing up and junior high school, you're out having fun on the weekend. It's still great that we were able to stay in contact with one another. He eventually left to go back to a program in his home state. But he got his basketball skills from when he played with the Ohio team. So just remember that.

Q. Ethan, just as far as the season has gone, you played really well against the elites in the Big Ten. Thomas Bryant and Diamond Stone. What type of a different challenge does Zach Auguste pose, and what type of things are you looking for when facing him?
ETHAN HAPP: He's one of the bigs that have quicker feet. And I've kind of used that to my advantage throughout playing in the Big Ten. And now he's kind of got the same skill set in that sense. So obviously you have to match his intensity. Coach talked about how he's a bulldog and just kind of keep him in check.

Q. Nigel, Coach was talking about how in December your locker room kind of came together and you guys had to kind of come together as a team. What changed and how did you all do that to kind of get to where you are now?
NIGEL HAYES: Again, with that question, I don't know if essentially we came together. I mean, we've always been close with one another, hung out with one another. I think what happened was it was more a sense of urgency combined with guys starting to believe in themselves. And it especially happened after the Northwestern game as you all know, the story has been told a million times. But after that the message I was trying to spread to the guys was that not only collectively are we better than that, but individually the guys out there. And they're better players than what they and we have been playing like.

And in order for us to do something, do what we all expect we can do and start to actually win some games we had to change our mindset in the way we approached it. And once guys embodied that, our play picked up as a team and collectively we came together, guys started playing better and we just tried to ride that confidence and that wave from here on out.

Q. Nigel, what's the technique of getting fouled? Because you get fouled a lot. What different things do you do? Do you try to get fouled a percentage of the time or does it just happen because you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and being where you're supposed to be?
NIGEL HAYES: A couple of things. Growing up I've always paid attention to things. If you ever watch any good, great point guards that's one of the things the commentators always mention is that he draws fouls by getting his body into bigger guys. And also I've watched James Harden, how he accumulates a lot of fouls. I think he is or he was leading most free throw attempts, most free throws made. And I watched his technique and the way he's able to draw fouls.

I would not share that technique with you guys because I don't want them using it against us. But what he's done with those fouls I've tried to replicate. It's worked thus far and it's a matter of not being afraid to make contact when you drive to the rim, you can expect there's a big guy there who's been told, you must protect the rim and the paint. So you know you're going to get hit, so it's a matter of embracing the contact and trying to fight your way through and finishing and getting an and-one.

Q. Bronson, how does experience factor into your approach to the tournament this season?
BRONSON KOENIG: Just having been here before and having a bunch of older, experienced guys the past couple of years. Me and Nigel embrace our roles as leaders on this team and just making sure everybody else is ready to play when the game comes.

Q. Bronson or any of the guys up there, can the transition and coaching that's kind of hit you guys by surprise, did Coach Gard have to sell you all on anything to get this going or was it just he'd been there so it was kind of easier because of that?
BRONSON KOENIG: Like you said, he had been there for so long, he had been coaching with Coach Ryan for so many years that it wasn't really much of a change because they had the same, generated the same philosophies on everything. So and he told us right from the start that it wasn't about him, that it was about the players, and he was going to do his best to make sure that we are in the best position possible for success and that's what he did. And he told us it wasn't an audition for him. So he just made it all about his players.

ETHAN HAPP: Yeah, it's always been about the players. And we had a meeting with the coaches the day after he was announced the head coach. And he talked about how he was just so happy for us that we were getting a chance to contribute and play in the NCAA Tournament. And he's done a great job of making it about the team.

Q. Bronson, you said last week, after you hit your shot, that you had practiced that exact shot. How long had you been practicing that shot and why that particular shot?
BRONSON KOENIG: I would say approximately three years or so, ever since me and Nigel started playing one-on-one games, I think it was freshman year sometime. And I mean the rule is that neither of us could go to the basket, so we have to shoot all jump shots basically. It's pretty tough getting it over his outstretched arms. So that's just one of the shots that I have to perfect, basically, if I want to beat him in the one-on-one games which I do most of the time.

Q. Ethan, Coach said that he thought you had kind of a turning point after the game against Nebraska. Do you feel that way and like what changed for you?
ETHAN HAPP: Yeah, I think it was -- the mindset was the biggest change. It wasn't anything physical or skill-wise. But I think after that game I kind of stopped getting down on myself so much for not performing as well as I should be. And I think doing that has helped myself and my team get here.

Q. One of your teammates improved his game this year, Vitto Brown, but what has Coach meant in terms of your own individual games -- Nigel, Bronson or Ethan -- in terms of individual game, and also you guys as a team?
NIGEL HAYES: He's done a great job. Again, like with the Wisconsin program of making sure you preach the fundamentals, because as non-cool, I guess you could say, it seems to portray that to especially the younger kids, doing the fundamentals, that's what makes you able to do the better things in basketball. For example, one of the things he always harps on me is when I drive through, I need to focus on jump stopping instead of going off one foot. And that jump stopping allows you to, if you don't have a shot right away you have a chance to pump fake, you can pivot, you can find an open teammate.

By going off one foot you're already in the air so the only thing you can do is throw up a bad shot if it's not there, throw a terrible pass if it's not there, or travel. He tries to emphasize doing the fundamentals of things, and then from there you're just playing the game of basketball and that's something that not only he tells myself but the team.

BRONSON KOENIG: Like Nigel said, he really stresses the fundamentals and he's also a perfectionist, probably got that from Coach Ryan. He's always making sure we're doing the right thing on and off the court, in practice, just 100 percent of the time. Even if we we win a game and we play really well he can still find 100 clips for game film the day after to show us. So but me personally, just driving north and south and getting my shoulders to the rim and finishing through contact.

Q. Bronson, two-part question. First, what does it do for your confidence to make a shot like that, and second, what is the most interesting thing been about the reaction to that shot since then?
BRONSON KOENIG: I was in a little bit of a shooting slump for the past couple of games, so it definitely felt really good to get out there and make a couple of shots, and especially a game-winner, a game-tier and a game-winner like that. So I hopefully can let that propel me forward the next four games or so. So, yeah, and, I mean, I just get asked more questions like this. That's pretty much it.

Q. Ethan, I think Frank Kaminsky talked about you guys, I guess, you getting to him last year in practices, and Coach was saying you could give it right back to him, one of the few guys who could do that. How much did going against him help you in ways? And for the other two guys, Coach said that Ethan's mellowed out this year. Has he or is he as intense in practice as he was last year?
ETHAN HAPP: I owe a lot of my game to Frank whether it's him verbally telling me what to do or me just learning from experience playing against him. I've learned a lot of moves from him. I've even learned some stuff watching Nigel the past couple of years. And having Frank to go against the best player in the country last year all year long was something special and I think redshirting was the best decision, and I think I wouldn't have been able to play against him every day in practice if I hadn't done that.

BRONSON KOENIG: I think Ethan's always been a pretty mellow dude. Like you said, he's done a better job recently not getting so down on himself, especially the first day he got on campus, those first few practices, you know, he took criticism pretty hard. So he's definitely gotten more mentally tough in that sense.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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