Wisconsin men’s basketball: Greg Gard, Nate Reuvers and Aleem Ford discuss the Ohio State loss

We’ll have a recap of Monday’s press conference later, but first here are the thoughts from head coach Greg Gard and senior forwards Nate Reuvers and Aleem Ford from directly after the loss to Ohio State on Saturday.

Greg Gard

• “They put us on our heels offensively and we never set the tone defensively.” It appears to be a similar story in every game the Badgers have lost this season that they get off to a slow start and are unable to recover.
• On shooting a lot of threes and maybe not driving enough, “Not enough, but I thought a vast majority of the threes we had were really good looks...but again we did have some extremely good looks that we have to take at that point and time.”
• On if the team is pressing, “I didn’t think we were at the same level defensively today as we had been the past couple of games.”
• On OSU making mid-range shots, “If you look analytically, yeah you’re saying you force a lot of those you can’t survive 40 minutes. You try and force intermediate twos, but they’ve shot it really well.” Gard noted that OSU made some shots early and their confidence sky-rocketed.
• On Nate Reuvers’ game, “I thought he played better. And he has practiced better and that’s the start. For him to take this step forward today is a good sign for us.”

• On the early three pointer foul call against Brad Davison, “In the moment, that’s a big play.”

Aleem Ford

• “We let them establish themselves early and they got very comfortable in the first half the first, say, 10 possessions.”
• Ford mentioned that they need to “pound it inside” and “work inside out” on offense because that’s how they’ll shoot better. It should be noted that all three men said they thought most of the threes that the Badgers took were good looks and within the offense.
• On defensive struggles, “We got a little undisciplined at times.”

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Nate Reuvers

• “If we’re going to win these games we need to lock them up defensively.”
• On how he thought he played against OSU, “It’s been a tough year obviously, personally, I just wanna keep playing harder with more energy for this team.” Noted that Gard said the team needs him.