The Wisconsin Badgers basketball team is having an incredible season this year after being picked to be towards the bottom of the Big Ten, just the opposite is happening. They are now considered to have one of the best resumes in all of college basketball, and they continue to find ways to win both at home and on the road. During the bye week this week (with no games during the weekday), Greg Gard jumped on "The Swing" podcast and was very candid about the season and the transfer portal.
Also worth noting…Gard said they have also been in process of trying to retain Nolan Winter and John Blackwell for “quite awhile.”
— Zach Heilprin (@ZachHeilprin) February 11, 2025
Greg Gard is working to keep John Blackwell and Nolan Winter from entering the portal
Gard spoke at length about the transfer portal and how they already have their eyes on certain guys. Even as early as January, agents were reaching out to them. He said that the nature of the game has changed so much, with everything being viewed as "one-year windows" for college basketball. He's even trying to make sure he keeps both John Blackwell and Nolan Winter. He said that his staff has been working on it for "quite a while."
"Quite frankly this job has changed so much with all the moving parts. You are more of a CEO than you are a coach. I watch a lot of film and spend time [on that] but there's so much more that goes into now that wasn't part of it 10 years ago... You spend a lot of time future casting on how your roster needs to be. We used to do it in three to four year snapshots...now you're looking at one year snapshots. What does next year need to be? ... Retaining Blackwell and Winter are our top priority. "Greg Gard
The quote above is a condensed version of all of what he said; you can look at the whole interview on YouTube. The quote above is at about the 40-minute mark. The important context is while Blackwell and Winter are on the team, he already knows that there will be teams working to recruit them away. They may not be currently looking around, but there will be some looking around by every player now in these one-year windows.
It's an alarming place where college sports are currently when a coach is in the middle of an epic season and already negotiating with agents about keeping the current players on the team for next season. Not ideal.