MADISON — Greg Gard was telling one of his assistant coaches that the 2025-26 Wisconsin team is “individually really talented.”
Here comes the but.
“Collectively, we’re not in sync yet,” Gard said. “So we’ve got to do that on both ends of the floor.”
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Gard’s comments are not shocking considering the circumstances that his 2025-26 group is facing. Wisconsin has eight newcomers and only two returning starters. (There were nine newcomers before Elijah Gray’s dismissal.)
Of the 10 presumed rotational players for the 2025-26 season — and the 10 that saw significant playing time in the two exhibitions — only guards John Blackwell and Jack Janicki and forward Nolan Winter were on last year’s team that reached the second round of the NCAA tournament.
“I think this is the newest team I’ve been a part of in terms of guys coming from different places and stuff like that,” said Nick Boyd, who transferred to UW after one season at San Diego State and four years before that at Florida Atlantic.
The lack of existing chemistry was apparent at times in the Badgers’ two exhibition games. Gard’s group struggled defensively in its loss to Oklahoma at Fiserv Forum and then had offensive shortcomings in its win over UW-Platteville. (The Division III-level Pioneers trailed only 47-45 at one point in the second half.)
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Gard — who has garnered acclaim for how he has adapted his roster-building in the transfer portal era — is adapting how he conducts practice as well to expedite the acclimation process for the new-look Badgers.
“I got to focus on doing more five-on-five probably than ever in practice just because we have to get that synergy better,” Gard said. “It’s not bad. It’s not like they don’t get along. … They just haven’t played a lot of live reps together, and we’ve got to simulate that more probably than ever.”
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Gard added that the Badgers are not practicing more. It’s just a different breakdown of the existing time in the gym compared to what he would usually do in his previous 24 seasons on the UW bench.
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“Typically as you come through September, October, it’s a lot of less-than-five-person drills — five-on-five,” Gard said. “It’s one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three, four-on-four, disadvantage drills of six-on-four or five-on-four. … We’ll focus on the concept of drills and the technicalities of things, technique of things within five-on-five play.”
Wisconsin Badgers forward Nolan Winter dunks during a practice at the Nicholas-Johnson Pavilion in Madison on Oct. 6, 2025.
Wisconsin guard Braeden Carrington has appreciated the approach, which also is different from what he experienced in his one year at Tulsa and two years at Minnesota before that.
“Playing five-on-five is helpful,” Carrington said. “That’s just the best way to learn your team because obviously we have, what, nine new guys or something like that. So just getting out there and being able to compete against each other and figure out everybody’s strengths and weaknesses — it’s definitely a big thing.”
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More: Wisconsin’s transfers look to make impact in 2025-26 after John Tonje’s big year
The newcomer-heavy roster is not a totally new reality for Wisconsin (or college basketball as a whole). Last year’s team had seven newcomers — transfers Xavier Amos, Camren Hunter and John Tonje along with four incoming freshmen. Tonje was in his last year of eligibility, and Amos and Hunter re-entered the portal after the season.
“That’s why those that coached in junior college always said they had an advantage in this world because they can snap together rosters,” Gard said. “You get a different roster every year, and our game is kind of taking that twist too.”
Wisconsin, with its eight newcomers in 2025-26, does not necessarily have an abundance of time to acclimate before the schedule gets much more difficult than the Nov. 3 season opener against Campbell or the Nov. 7 game against Northern Illinois.
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BYU, ranked No. 8 in the USA Today Sports preseason coaches poll, looms on Nov. 21. It will be the first of seven straight games against teams in high-major conferences over a 29-day stretch. That includes early Big Ten games against Northwestern and Nebraska.
“Every team writes its own story and goes on its own journey,” Gard said. “So you obviously always want it to click faster than it probably does or conceivably can happen. But that’s why I want to do more five-on-five and more simulation in practice than what we’ve ever done.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How Greg Gard is changing Wisconsin’s practices to get more synergy
