The hardest part for Greg Gard this season is figuring out what combination of players he can trust on any given night. It seems as if he has just a few players he is reasonably confident can go in there and handle top-tier opponents; the rest is a roll of the dice. After beating the final non-conference opponent of the season, Milwaukee, in a final score of 80-60, Greg Gard opened up about his thinking when it comes to the bench.
He now has Zach Kinziger in the mix and essentially backing up Nick Boyd. In fact, he said, that's the plan with Kinziger to have him give Boyd spells and even help to reset if things need to be reset. Which means now the bench is deeper and the scout team is thinner.
This has forced Gard to rotate Carrington and Janicki and potentially others into and off of the scout team. He's talked with them about not taking it wrong, but it helps the team win. So, what's his plan with the bench? "I'm going to I'm going to mix and match them...it'll change from game to game."
Greg Gard is flying a bit blind when it comes to his bench and he's hoping to find the hot hand
Related: Greg Gard's post Villanova message reveals how few players he can actually trust
How's it going to decide? Well, some of it will be based on matchup, but he said a lot of it will depend on practices and the hot hand. Gard said that it will be a lot about "who's been playing well, what matchups are good. You know, if somebody comes out with a hot hand and is playing well, you ride that a little longer."
Gard said that foul trouble will come into play, and then he said this line that makes you know that he's still fully experimenting and trying to figure it out, "What I've learned is, I have to play them all. I'm going to mix and match them and allow them to show me who can be consistently at the front. It'll change from game to game, who is maybe the first one off the bench and the last one off the bench."
Ultimately, though, he said his primary goal is that the bench raises the level of play. If the bench experiment works, that is exactly what will happen; if it doesn't, Gard will need to go into the offseason and really evaluate how he ended up with this roster and why there was such a drop-off after the first 3-5 players.