Greg Gard addresses Wisconsin's hesitancy amid struggles

Wisconsin has hit an unexpected rut in the middle of the conference slate, dropping four straight games. Coach Greg Gard is doing his best to get a handle on things, but he doesn’t sound overly panicked.

To some degree, this is just how things go within a season.

So how do the Badgers halt the skid and really turn things around from a momentum standpoint? And are players getting a little tentative or forcing things too much as they try to get out of the rut?

“I mean that’s probably a question probably for them individually,” Gard said. “I mean it’s hard, I’ve always said I should not have majored in education. I should have majored in psychology, because that is really where this has gone. And probably always has been. And I’ve encouraged them, ‘Hey, be aggressive. You can’t be hesitant. You can’t.'”

The losses are explainable enough. Three of them have come on the road, while the fourth was to No. 2 Purdue. It was a tough stretch.

Even so, for NCAA Tournament seeding purposes, Wisconsin would be best-served by turning things around as quickly as possible and getting back on track.

“And there’s still decision-making technique things that we have to get better at and we have gotten better with it, but that’s the challenge over the course of a season,” Gard said. “Can you stay (elevated)? Because this group, I’ve told them, they’ve played at a really high level. It’s not about if they can get there, they’ve been there. Now you have got to stay there.”

Wisconsin is far from the only team dealing with a little bit of a mid-season slump. Of course, Selection Sunday is indifferent to the why, looking straight at the resume.

So it’d be a good idea for the Badgers to kick things into gear as soon as possible.

Still, Gard remains relatively unconcerned there are any bigger-picture impacts for his team. He doesn’t necessarily see anything troubling in terms of underlying trends. He just wants his guys to keep playing.

“If you watch most teams in the country you see a little bit of (up and down) at certain times,” Gard said. “Most of the teams in our league have done this. With the exception of Purdue, everybody else has kind of had their moments where they’ve scuffled and stumbled a little bit, so you just stay the course and go back to what got you there: aggressiveness, fundamentally sound, not trying to overcook things. We’re not going to reinvent the wheel.”

Wisconsin will return to action tonight against Ohio State in a game that tips off at 9 p.m. ET on Peacock.