Badgers show flaws in exhibition win over Pioneers
By Ben Pickman | Oct. 30, 2016Wisconsin’s 86-56 exhibition win over UW-Platteville Sunday afternoon might have been an early Thanksgiving reunion for the Gard and Showalter families, but the Badgers’ win over the Pioneers featured more than your standard batch of familial reunions. Turnovers, missed free throws and at times sloppy defense plagued the Badgers for long stretches of the afternoon, making Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard’s first matchup against his brother, Platteville head coach Jeff Gard, far less enjoyable than he would have wanted. Sure the Badgers have now won 43 consecutive exhibition games and led Sunday’s game from start to finish, but for a team with championship aspirations, the Badgers showed they still have a long way to go. “I saw some things that were good and positive and obviously a lot of things that will make the teaching tape that we’ll have to get better at,” Gard said. UW struggled for long stretches of the first half thanks to a flurry of bad passing, poor offensive possessions and abysmal free throw shooting.
