Lucas: Gilmore gaining in playing time and confidence
December 22, 2021 | Men's Basketball
Sophomore forward earning time on the court as Badgers prep for George Mason on Thursday
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — With 23 seconds left in a two-possession game against Nicholls State last Wednesday at the Kohl Center, Greg Gard went to his bench and subbed 6-foot-7 Carter Gilmore for 7-foot Chris Vogt. The Wisconsin head coach made the move with one thing in mind.
"At the end of a lot of games when it comes down to the wire and it's a close game, he normally subs me in on defense for the last possession," Gilmore explained. "I usually sub in for the 5 (center) so we can switch everything. Normally, I get switched on the point guard right away. It's tough.
"But it shows he trusts me to play good defense and go in there and get a stop."
With the Badgers clinging to a 71-68 lead, Nicholls had the ball on a side-out with five seconds remaining. Gilmore knew that guard Ty Gordon would get the ball. A dangerous perimeter threat, Gordon had already scored a game-high 26 points, including four of his team's five 3-pointers.
"I saw them set-up in kind of a double-stagger (screens)," said Gilmore. "I've played enough basketball to kind of know what was coming. So, I closed out the best I could. Shooting over a 6-7 guy is pretty tough. First and foremost was not fouling. That would make Coach Gard way more mad.
"Contesting straight-up was the best thing I could do and force him into a tough shot."
Gilmore switched on to Gordon who took a contested 3 from the right corner with Gilmore's hand in his face. He missed. Although Manny Littles got the offensive rebound and was fouled, there was only one second left on the clock. Littles clanked both free throws and Wisconsin escaped.
That would be the operative verb. Escaped. The Badgers trailed at halftime and were minus their leading scorer and rebounder Johnny Davis who was sidelined. In the only other game that Davis sat out this season, Providence left Madison with a 58-53 victory in mid-November.
Meanwhile, there was no evidence in the Nicholls box score of Gilmore's contribution on that final stop. It revealed only that he had played four minutes and 19 seconds and didn't take a shot from the field. He missed his lone free throw attempt and was guilty of a foul. Such is life in the shadows.
"Right now, just playing good defense and not making mistakes is a role, but I definitely think it can increase with the skills that I have," said Gilmore. "As my game continues to develop and my confidence continues to grow, I think on the offensive end I can help so much more on this team.
"But that's going to come with time and as I get better as well."
At the time of his comments, the Badgers were still looking for an opponent after Morgan State paused team activities due to COVID protocols. That scheduling void has since been filled by George Mason setting up the first meeting ever between the schools on Thursday (6 p.m.) at the Kohl Center.
The Patriots are best known for their 2006 Final Four run under then head coach Jim Larranaga as a No. 11 seed, the lowest to ever advance that far in the Big Dance. LSU (1986), VCU (2011) and Chicago Loyola (2018) are the only other 11's to match that feat in the NCAA tournament.
George Mason lost in the semifinals to Florida, the eventual national champion.
On Tuesday night, the Patriots, under first-year head coach Kim English, 33, defeated American, 67-44, lifting their overall record to 7-5. George Mason opened the season with four straight wins, including a 37-point rout of Morgan State and a road upset of then-ranked Maryland.
For someone like Gilmore, who's averaging 9.8 minutes and battling for his niche in the rotation, there's no substitute for game experience. That's why these final nonconference tune-ups prior to the resumption of Big Ten competition (Jan. 3 at Purdue) potentially loom so large in his development.
The Badgers are also scheduled to face Illinois State on Dec. 29 at the Kohl Center.
"For sure, these games are big, especially at home, to get confidence going," Gilmore said after Monday's practice. "It's obviously good for us to just be practicing and have days like today where we don't have to do scout (team) and just work on our own personal skills and team offense and defense."
Interjected UW assistant Sharif Chambliss, "I think games like this are just important to our team overall. For Carter, he just needs to keep working and doing the things that we ask. He's a guy who's going to figure it out. He's a strong-minded kid that can definitely help us throughout the season."
• • • •
Last spring, Gilmore sat in Gard's office for a standard end-of-the-season meeting. As a true freshman walk-on from Arrowhead High School (Hartland, Wis.), he had appeared in just nine games for a combined total of 17 minutes. His primary role was on the scout team during practices.
"Coach Gard started off with a couple of questions," Gilmore recalled. "He asked me, 'What I thought I needed to improve on?' and 'What I thought I was good at?' I answered those questions. And he followed up by saying, 'I think you've come a long way and you've earned a scholarship.'"
After turning down some Division I offers from mid-majors, Gilmore knew the risk involved with walking on. But he felt like he could make it work. So, when he got the news from Gard, he said, "Obviously, it was a dream come true … that was my goal all along to get a scholarship to Wisconsin."
The first thing that he did was text his mother, Stephanie.
"My mom has just been there for me — she kind of always followed the dream with me and has always believed in me and helped me believe in myself," Gilmore said. It was no different with his dad, Brian, who helped develop his game. "That definitely played a big part in having my dad coach me."
You'd be hard-pressed to find better basketball mentors than Brian and Stephanie Gilmore. Both were Hall of Fame players: Brian at Arrowhead High (where he left as the school's all-time leading scorer) and Stephanie at UW-Platteville (where she still is the school's all-time leading scorer).
Brian Gilmore started his college career at North Dakota State before transferring to Platteville where he came under the influence of a Hall of Fame coach, Bo Ryan. In 1991, the Pioneers made the transition from NAIA status and won their first of four Division III national championships under Ryan.
Gilmore, a 6-5 center, started all 31 games alongside of Rob Jeter, T.J. Van Vie, Delano Brazil and Carlton Jeter on a team that averaged 97 points. The following season, Platteville took third place in the tournament and Gilmore was teammates with Rob Schipper, the father of UW tailback Brady Schipper.
In 2012, Ryan's first NCAA title team (in its entirety) went into the Platteville Hall of Fame. Five years earlier, Stephanie (Sullivan) Gilmore had been inducted. From 1989-1992, she played in 108 games and scored 1,805 points in becoming the first and only women's All-American in school history.
"My mom always coached my two sisters and my dad coached me growing up," said Carter Gilmore, referencing his older sister Grace, a grad transfer at Nova Southeastern University (a Div. II program in Fort Lauderdale, Florida); and younger sister Libby, an eighth grader.
Grace Gilmore started three years at Western Illinois.
"My older sister was like an older brother, Grace was just scrappy," Carter said of the family competition on their backyard court. "We'd both come out with bloody noses each time we played. Very rarely would we get to finish because there were going to be punches thrown."
Father and son also had some memorable one-on-one duels.
"I'd pretend that I was Sam Dekker and he'd pretend that he was Frank Kaminsky, and we'd play games to 21," said Carter, who as a youngster twice met Dekker "but I don't know if he would remember … I still have autographs from all of that (back-to-back Final Four) team hanging up in my room."
In retrospect, Gilmore credited his dad, "For having the role that I have and being a smart player first. I might not be as athletic as everyone else out there. But mentally, I know the game and the principles that Bo taught and now that Coach Gard teaches that I've learned since I was little."
Gilmore averaged 27 points, 11 rebounds and six assists as a senior and became Arrowhead's career scoring leader (1,565). He set the school mark with 49 points in the regional final. By comparison, Grace once had 46 at Western Illinois and Stephanie had 42 at Platteville. Also single-game records.
The first coach to contact Carter Gilmore during the recruiting process was Chambliss.
"I was all over Carter … me and him have had a relationship since then," said Chambliss, who was then an assistant at Wright State. "He was a bigger kid who still had a pretty good handle. I thought he would be a stud for us and a perfect fit because we ran a lot of stuff through the 4-man."
Now as a Badger assistant, Chambliss is appreciative of Gilmore's versatility especially when he's operating on the scout team "because he's a guy who can do a little bit of everything." He believes, too, that he will only get better with more repetitions and experience. Gilmore is of the same belief.
"How I play in practice is how I have to play in the game," he said. "I have a lot of confidence in practice … now it's just transferring those in-practice reps and skills over to a game. As the season goes on and my experience grows, it will only improve. For sure, there are a lot of areas for me to grow."
And he has just begun to bloom.
