The foregone conclusion will come to its conclusion on Tuesday, as Jim Polzin of the Wisconsin State Journal is reporting the Wisconsin Badgers will introduce Greg Gard as the new permanent head coach for the men’s basketball program.
According to the report, the UW Board of Regents will hold an emergency meeting at 5p.m. on Monday, to “consider an employment agreement and compensation for a UW-Madison head basketball coach.”
Gard took over a team that was 7-5 when Bo Ryan retired heading in to finals week for the University of Wisconsin. Since then, Gard put together one of the most impressive runs in the Big Ten and finished the season winning 11 of the last 13 contests after a 1-4 start to conference play.
However, his hire wasn’t a foregone conclusion when he was given the interim job. Athletic director Barry Alvarez made it very clear he wouldn’t just hand the job to Gard and that a national search for a head coach would be done at the end of the season.
There was no need for that after the way UW played under and reacted to Gard. Getting a team squarely out of the NCAA tournament squarely back in it spoke as loudly as anything in college basketball.
Gard’s future at UW became very clear two weeks ago, as Alvarez chose to post the permanent job opening while season was still going on. If he was opening this job up to a true national search the timing of the opening was surely curious.
Instead, it will the 45-year-old Gard getting his first permanent head coaching job at any level. With plenty of young players ready to come back in 2016-17 and finally some stability for the recruiting trail it will be an interesting offseason for the Badgers ahead.
Wisconsin will head in to the Big Ten tournament as the No. 6 seed after a multi-team tie for third place in the regular season standings. The Badgers will get the winner of Rutgers-Nebraska on Thursday night and a few wins during the tournament may bolster UW’s status in the NCAA tournament seeding process as well.
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