Penn State Men's Basketball
Wisconsin Head Coach Greg Gard Postgame Press Conference
vs. Wisconsin – January 11, 2020
Head Coach Greg Gard
Q. When you look at Penn State offensively, do you look at what they shot over the past couple games and go maybe we are going to get that, or do you look at what you know they can produce?
A: I think you look at the numbers that come into play a little bit, but also you look at number of possessions, pace of play, those types of things, how other teams are playing them, so there is a lot of things that go into what you analyze a team offensively about. Obviously, they have been scoring at a high rate, so we had to be very good defensively starting with our transition, and I thought for the most part we were good in transition. There were a couple we let guys get loose for threes, and some of them didn't go down. They had some good looks early in transition, but for the most part I thought we were able to get our defense set which is important.
Q. I think you were very unhappy the other night defensively. That is probably safe to say that effort on that side of the court was much better today.
A: The effort was fine the other night. There was not a lack of effort. The execution was not very good, so we didn't change anything. We didn't invent a new defense today. We did what we also do, but we did it better. That was the main difference. We did what we normally do better today.
Q. Greg, not to single out people, but can you talk about the job [Micah] Potter did on both ends of the court, and what [Brad] Davison gave you without shooting the ball all that well?
A: Obviously we can always take contributions off the bench, and we had to balance foul trouble at the four and the five with Nate [Reuvers] and Aleem [Ford] having some foul trouble, but I also liked what Micah [Potter] did throwing foul trouble out. I just like what Potter gave us, and I liked what Tyler Wahl gave us. I thought Trevor Anderson gave us some great minutes off the bench, and Brad [Davison] on the glass that was terrific in terms of what he did. Bigs are a lot of times engaged with the other bigs, so you need guards to crack down, and clean up some of those rebounds at times. You have to have a toughness about you to not worry about whether you are going to get hit with an elbow or knocked around a lit bit. He is as tough as they come.
Q. Mike Watkins from Penn State was held without a point tonight, what do you think you guys did on the defense end to limit him?
A: It is a team effort in terms of ball pressure, making sure we are minimizing the touches, keeping the ball out of there and if it does get in where can we help from, can we squeeze a bit here and there. I thought we did good job on both him and Lamar [Stevens] off the glass. The two bigs had the assignment obviously individually, but collectively it is how we have to defend as a team.
Q. Do you feel like you have nine guys that are essentially starters that you can play starter minutes to?
A: We scrimmage a lot of times now because of our coaching staff injuries, and [Joe] Hedstrom having surgery on his knee, and we go the first five versus the second five through [Walt] McGrory in the second five. A lot of times the second five beats the first five, so practices get a little fiery once in a while which is good and competitive. Like I said, in order to have a good team you have to contributions coming from many areas and this group is starting to understand what everybody's role is and embrace that.
Q. Greg, you were asked after the loss to Illinois about not being able to build on momentum from Ohio State, and you said it doesn't matter and we know what comes next. What does winning today here against a team that was unbeaten at home and coming off a loss, tell you about your team maybe something that you already knew?
A: I think we have learned over November and December to be more resilient in games. We talked about that last week at the press conference, we had adversity hit us earlier in the year and we did not react to it well or respond to it well within a game. That a lot of times is placed on shooting. If you don't shoot it well, how do you react to it? I think this team will continue to mature a little bit. You have to, in this league, turn the page quick whether you play well like we did against Ohio State, or I don't want to discredit Illinois because that is a good team. In this league there are no easy nights, and you have to whether you have success or you stumble a little bit you have to quickly turn the page, and move on. We will from this. We will watch the film, do our review tomorrow, and it will quickly turn to Maryland tomorrow afternoon.
Q. Greg, I wanted to ask you about where Penn State is, and if you could look back a bit to Wisconsin in 2001, and that is really kind of early on when your program became a national power getting to the tournament every year. There has long been a feeling here that Wisconsin did this, Penn State could do this at some point. Do you see any comparisons between Penn State where they have gotten to over the last couple years and what Pat [Chambers] is doing here with what Wisconsin was doing in the late 90s and early 2000s?
A: To give you a history lesson this started before we got there in 2001. It took a long time. Stew Jackson really kind of started convincing people that you can have success at Wisconsin in basketball, and then Coach [Dick] Bennet came in and built on that and set a foundation. Obviously, Coach [Bo] Ryan did a phenomenal job growing it more. It takes a long time, and it is a complete commitment from the whole university, and specifically the athletic department. I think Pat [Chambers] has done a great job, and I told the team when we talked in my pregame about obviously I've been in the league. Me, [Matt] Painter, and [Tom] Izzo, maybe the three oldest in terms of assistants not as a head coach, but understand the first thing that he changed here was the culture and how hard they play. In this league you have to play hard or you are going to get your socks knocked off. I think he has continued to build on that, and obviously he has gotten good players. They have a really good team. It takes time, it doesn't happen overnight. Everybody wants instant gratification, and it is hard to win at a high level, and when you can do it consistently you are in the upper echelons of college basketball. He has got things cemented in the right position in terms of the culture, and those types of things like how they play. He understands how to compete in this league. There is going to be ebbs and flows, I mean we all go through it. We went through a down year a couple years ago. It's hard and it's not easy, everybody thinks it is. He is doing a really good job with this team, and they are talented.
Q. I'm guessing Penn State's scouting report did not have [Micah] Potter shooting threes as well as he did. Were you at all surprised by the comfort at which he looked taking them today and hitting them?
A: He has done some of that, he did some of that last year when he was sitting out and playing on the scouting team. He knocked down some as a shooting big like that, so he has that. The first half he obviously hit them all, so the depth perception of where he was on the floor all the time I could not see the line with the light reflection. There were a couple 'oh no's' when he shot, but he got confident. That is a big thing with players. When they are confident they play really well, and then you have to continue and try and build on that. When someone is struggling with their confidence then you have to try and help them get it back. Confidence for the most part is about 99 percent internally generated. Coach can say a few things but they can't do everything.