Wisconsin Postgame Quotes
Wisconsin vs. Maryland
January 9, 2016
Kohl Center – Madison, Wis.UW Head Coach Greg GardÂ
Opening Statement:"Obviously, there will be the 50-60 possessions, 70 possessions that there were. I haven't seen the final sheet yet in term of points-per-possession, but there will be multiple things that we'll go back through and look at, first half and second half. Everything will be magnified in the last 18 seconds and how the game unfolded at the end, but there will be multiple things we'll have to look at, whether it be defensively or offensively, that put us in a position where it came down to the last 18 seconds. As I told the team, they made monumental strides in the right direction. Now it's a matter of becoming more consistent. For the most part, we got the ball in the right places. The shots that we took around the rim, we have two feet underneath us before we go and force contact. Those type of things we'll look at and have a better idea. I have some thoughts from watching it in front of me, but I don't want to get over analytical until I see it on film.
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"Proud of how they battled, how they worked, how they bought in. They continued to strive and push and get better. At the same time, there's no such thing as a moral victory. We still need to continue to get better. Like I said in the beginning of the week, if we do five things a little bit better of the 30 or 40 or 50 that I find, that makes a difference. We'll find the same thing here today.
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"Obviously, it's a very good team we played today, one of the better ones I've seen on film this year. You never know exactly how the pieces come together, but we battled, and we're not anywhere near where we can be yet. I think that's what has everybody so excited."
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On whether or not he senses the players losing motivation:"No, because I won't allow it. I told them there is no pity party here. Nobody feels sorry for us. We have to turn around and prepare for Northwestern. This league, having watched it and been in it my whole life, there's not time where you can take a breath and sit back and relax. You're on to the next one, whether you come out on the right hand side or the left hand side, it's on to the next and what can we learn from it. This group has the right mentality that's developing. It's not there yet, but we're in the developmental process."
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On the team's failure to close out close games:"There's about 80-90 things I pull every game, so 270 things in the last three games. It doesn't boil down to the last seconds, talking about closing out. There are so many things that put us in that position, either positively or negatively. I don't show just things that we make mistakes on, I show things where we've done pretty well and those things are starting to show more and more. I never worry about the scoreboard, I talk to them all the time about just worrying about the process. I got that from Nick Saban, reading a book of his a couple years ago. Don't worry about the scoreboard. Just focus on the process and do your job to the best of your abilities every single play and then the scoreboard will take care of itself. We haven't been playing to the best of our abilities on every single play. That's the process we've been working towards and building towards."
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On losing so many close games:
"It's pretty disheartening. The past few games, we've kind of had those mental lapses at the end that we can't have. Our margin of error is microscopic. We just got to find ways to win, not find ways to lose."
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On the difficulty of trusting the process after losing so many games:
"Like I said, it's disheartening losing these games by one, two, or three points like this. You could see how we're getting better, everything like that, but we just have to put a full game together and do the little things for the whole game. We didn't lose because he hit that three at the end necessarily, but it was the little plays throughout the whole game – the first half and the second half. We just haven't played a full 40 minutes yet of our best basketball."
On not seeing improvements show through the final score:
"It's tough. We do keep getting better, but we've been doing that for a while now, so it's time to start putting some wins on the board rather than losing these tough games."
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On what he can do to improve:
"Do the little things that add up to give you the wins. After a game of course, the first thing you look at are the last couple of plays. Those stand out, are always magnified, but throughout the game the little things are what usually give you a win or a loss. Right now we are on this trend of not doing the rights things. As I've said earlier at the beginning of the year, there are habits that develop with winning teams. They always find a way to win and with us and our current losing, things that we're doing right now, we're doing things that put us in the position to not win or make it tougher for us to win. We have to eliminate that."
Maryland Head Coach Mark Turgeon
Opening statement:"First of all, I want to say that I thought Wisconsin was terrific. I told Greg (Gard) after the game that they were great defensively. They executed and they totally dictated the game. They're getting better, and you've seen it the last three games. At Indiana down nine, they played Purdue to the wire. They played us to the wire. Wisconsin is really getting better.
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"With that said, it was a very physical game. It's the most physical game by far that we've played all year. Not even close and it took us a really long time to adjust to it. We were good for about four minutes. About the eight-minute mark to the four-minute mark, we were really, really good. We executed and Robert (Carter) did a really great job on Nigel (Hayes). Nigel was great most of the night. Then we held on, and of course Melo (Trimble) was Melo. We all expect him to make it. I told him I didn't love the shot, I wish he had been driving, but he's done that his whole life. Great win for us. Any road win is a great win."
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On the dynamics of the last possession:"It's not a lot of coaching. I knew I wasn't going to call a timeout. My mentors taught me not to do that, so I knew I wasn't going to do that. We just got out of his way. He's special. He does those kinds of things. We just got out of his way. Not a lot of coaching."
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