Wisconsin men’s basketball: local media day and Red/White Scrimmage recap

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the delay on this post. The dumb football team kept doing stuff and then my kids needed lunch every day and help going to the bathroom and couldn’t read to themselves and, well, you get the idea.

So, here is a recap of Greg Gard’s local media day press conference where he commented on just about every player on the team and then we have some links and tweets from the Red/White Scrimmage that happened on Sunday which we were unfortunately unable to attend.

• Greg Gard on what it’s like having such a young/new team: “Obviously a lot of new faces, but I think they’ve integrated really well.”

Transfers added “Maturity and experience”

“Some guys didn’t know who Herb Kohl was. We just had to educate some of the younger guys on the simplest of things.”

• On Lorne Bowman: “They went home in the first week of August,” Gard said. “When he came back in September, (there was) a definite transformation in him physically. And I knew obviously what he has gone through and the time off was going to impact him physically in a negative way. But how he transformed his body in that month away from here, changed his diet, he really attacked the workout regimen that he put together and looked totally different when he came back.”

“Started to see more of the Lorne Bowman we recruited.”

“Make sure he’s happy and healthy and in a good place.”

Here is a great article from Jesse Temple at The Athletic on Bowman ($).

• Calls Brad Davison “one of the best leaders I’ve been around in 30 years of coaching.”

David Stluka/Wisconsin Athletics

• “He’s bigger in real life than what he looked on film and stronger and realistically he’s better than what we thought.” Gard said about Markus Ilver. He still needs to work on defense but has a high IQ and a little bit of a mean streak, according to Gard.
• “Chucky [Hepburn] brings a vision or a feel, we’ve had a few guys in the 20 years I’ve been around that have that natural feel.”

“Very comfortable with the ball in their hands and seeing the floor.”

“I’m cautious to temper it a little bit just because he’s a freshman.”

“He loves to pickup full court and harass the ball handler. It’s a little bit of a double edged sword in terms of how we can be best holistically as a defense.”

“He’s going to have to earn the respect [of the officials]” to play tight defense Gard notes. He doesn’t want him picking up cheap fouls.

• Transfer wing Isaac Lindsey used to be a ball kid for UW, and Gard went to college with Lindsey’s parents, so it was kind of an easy transition to return home from UNLV for him.

As far as fellow transfers Jahcobi Neath and Chris Vogt, the UW staff never met them in person.

• “Ben [Carlson] is someone who can get to the glass really quick. I think he can be a really good rebounder.”
• On Jonathan Davis playing with the U19 team over the summer: “The biggest thing that was noticeable when he came back from that was the confidence level and the swagger level so to speak.”

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Here are some links and tweets about the actual Red/White Scrimmage from this past Sunday.

David Stluka/Wisconsin Athletics

• Here is the in-house report from Mike Lucas at UWBadgers.
• Evan Flood from 247 writes about what he learned from the scrimmage.
• Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with his thoughts on who stood out ($).
• Abby Schnable of the Wisconsin State Journal had seven things that stood out to her ($).
• Jake Kocorowski of BadgerBlitz shared his three takeaways from the scrimmage ($).

Things started off inauspiciously for the Badgers as there was a large leak on the court before the event even got started.

Here is how the teams were split up:

TEAM RED

Ben Carlson, Steven Crowl, Carter Higginbottom, Markus Ilver, Isaac Lindsey, Jahcobi Neath, Justin Taphorn, Tyler Wahl

TEAM WHITE

Jonathan Davis, Jordan Davis, Brad Davison, Carter Gilmore, Chris Hodges, Matthew Mors, Chris Vogt

Inactive: Lorne Bowman (lower body) and Chucky Hepburn (upper body)

I couldn’t find an official box score or anything, but Jake noted in his report that “the teams combined to hit just 3-of-30 opportunities from beyond the arc” and that they “combined for 18 turnovers.”

Team White won the first 12-minute period, 18-7.
Team Red won the second 12-minute period, 20-9.