Wisconsin Basketball Will Look to Develop More Depth over Big Ten Strech
Wisconsin Basketball will be in action again on Tuesday evening as the Badgers will take on the Michigan Wolverines. Wisconsin comes into the game at 14-3, while the Wolverines come in at 12-6. The Badgers will look to get a new win streak going after their dominating win against Ohio State. The Badgers survived the inital gauntlet of the Big Ten opening and will now enter into a somewhat more favorable portion of the schedule in the wild Big Ten.
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Wisconsin will take on Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Rutgers, and Illinois over its next five games. While its never safe to assume a victory in the Big Ten, especially this season, the Badgers will look to get another significant streak going before facing off with Indiana once again.
The toughest of the stretch will certainly be when the Badgers head to Minnesota, but all in all the stretch favors Wisconsin for a good chunk of the way. Over this stretch, Coach Gard will likely look to try and develop more depth and rotation going into February and March. Which could benefit Wisconsin Basketball both this season and the future.
While you never want to look to the future during a current season, the unfortunate truth is that in college sports you have to in balance both winning now and setting yourself for sustainability in the future. The Badgers currently start four seniors, and do not have much of a bench rotation to see who will step into that role and take a majority of those minutes next season.
I suspect Coach Gard to challenge his bench players and try to find a rotation that they can try and stay true to as the Badgers get deeper into Big Ten play. While it will benefit the future, it would certainly also benefit Wisconsin Basketball this season as the Badgers have yet to find quality bench minutes while will become vital in March.
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D’Mitrik Trice has proved to be the 6th man all season and is regularly rotated, but the rest of the bench is somewhat unclear. Guys like Khalil Iverson and Jordan Hill had been getting significant minutes, but the fluctuation has certainly been back and fourth all season. If the Badgers want to make a deep run, guys like these and the bigs like Thomas and Illikainen will be vital down the stretch, and the only way to prepare them for that is to work them in more regularly. With a more favorable schedule coming up, look for Gard to develop these players both for the remainder of this season and into next.