The Wisconsin Badgers dropped an ugly game to the Providence Friars, losing 72-59 in a loss that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated.
Wisconsin had no answers throughout the night, trailing by 16 at halftime, and as many as 25 in the second half.
Following the game, head coach Greg Gard was irritated at the performance, who cited the team’s lack of effort in the loss.
“Credit to Providence. They kicked our ass, so we’ll see how we respond to it. But they played hard. We didn’t play hard enough all the time in the show, playing hard covers up wards and I thought they did a good job,” Gard said.
“Made some plays, knocked down shots, but gave them confidence. Loose balls that we don’t get to, we don’t dive on, they get a three. Just hustle plays like that. But that was evident early and by the time we started to figure it out, we were in too deep a hole.”
The effort issues were clear to Gard early, who pointed out one specific play where Providence just wanted it more, which set the tone for the whole evening.
“A lot of the things that we just talked about and just was evident early play right in front of me that I recall at the start, we knocked it loose from Hopkins on a dribble. It’s what we wanted to do. And the ball’s bouncing, rolling around and we don’t dive on it and they get a three,” Gard said.
“That in one play was very indicative of how the rest of the night went.”
The Badgers finished the game shooting 21/62 from the field, including 7/20 on layups in an ugly offensive performance.
But, they also gave up 58 percent of Providence’s shots on the other end, including 44 percent of their threes.
They’ll look to turn things around against Robert Morris on Friday, but Tuesday was not a step in the right direction for a team looking to bounce back from a disappointing season.
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