What Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard said about losing to BYU in the NCAA Tournament

DENVER — What a heartbreaker for Wisconsin.

Trailing by 11 points with just over two and a half minutes left to play Saturday against BYU in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the Badgers stormed back to cut the lead to two with a chance to tie or take the lead with 13 seconds remaining.

A potential magic March moment eluded Wisconsin, however, as John Tonje’s awkward final shot attempt missed the mark, granting the Cougars a 91-89 victory to advance to the third Sweet Sixteen in program history.

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While the final sequence didn’t appear ideal — its result certainly wasn’t — Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard didn’t regret calling Tonje’s number with the game on the line.

“I put the ball in my best player’s hands,” Gard told reporters after the game. “We were in a flat alignment with some bumping action with the bigs on the two other guards, and it was his decision.

“You trust your players. We’re not in this position without John Tonje. We don’t have that comeback. We don’t have the year and win 27 games without J.T. We made the decision, we were coming down, we had done it before. Put the ball in your best player’s hands and let him go make a play.”

BYU enjoyed a balanced offensive attack against the Badgers, shooting 49.2% from the field, hitting 12 3-pointers and scoring 38 points in the paint.

Eight different Cougar players scored at least six points, with Richie Saunders, Egor Demin, Trevin Knell and Keba Keita all reaching double figures.

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“Saunders is really good. To come out and watch him warm up, the ball comes off his hands really well,” Gard said. “Demin as a freshman at that size, obviously you can tell he’s been trained in the European ball screen stuff from Russia. Obviously I thought (Mawot) Mag has improved. We played against him at Rutgers for four years, and he was just a defensive stopper there.

“(Keba) Keita I thought has gotten better since he’s come from Utah, and the other guys are doing a good job of filling their roles. (Mihailo) Boskovic hit a big 3. Down through the lineup, Knell did a good job, banged down some threes when they needed them.”

But Gard circled back to Saunders.

“But Saunders, you could tell he’s a gamer,” Gard continued. “He’s a winner. Had six offensive rebounds. The kid knows how to play. When you’ve got a guy like that, and I’ve got a lot of them, too, that play with the heart and the energy and the unwillingness to lose, you can do a lot of good things, and they’ve had a good year, and they get to keep playing.”

Though Wisconsin failed to get out of the tournament’s first weekend once again — the Badgers haven’t reached a Sweet Sixteen since 2017 — Gard expressed pride in his players for exceeding low expectations to enjoy a tremendous campaign, which culminated with a trip to the Big Ten championship game, a 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a first round win over Montana.

“Obviously the flurry and the heart and complete grit that we showed to make a comeback like that and have a chance in the last possession is a credit to the young men I’ve got in the locker room,” Gard said.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, almost 35 years, and as I told them, watching them grow together from the time we got together in June to now may have been the most fun, enjoyable year in my career.”

The Badgers, Gard noted, were picked to finish in the bottom third of the Big Ten Conference.

“We were highly doubted early. We weren’t even supposed to be in this tournament. Supposed to be finishing 12th in the Big Ten maybe, and this group just bought in and committed to each other and were so much fun to be around every single day and so much fun to coach, and the joy that they played with and how they bonded together is really, really special,” he said.

“Today stings a lot because we worked a long time to get to this position and have a chance, but in the big picture, I couldn’t be more proud of the group of how they committed to each other and to our program and continued to get better through the year.”