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Greg Gard contract details: Salary, length and more for Wisconsin basketball coach

craig meyer, usa today network
·4 min read

A 2023-24 Wisconsin basketball season that once held so much promise ended Friday night in disappointment.

The Badgers’ 72-61 loss to James Madison in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn marked not only another relatively early March Madness exit, but the final setback in an underwhelming finish to the season.

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After starting the season 16-4 and rising as high as No. 6 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, Wisconsin went 6-10 in its final 16 games. A run to the Big Ten Tournament championship game that included a semifinal victory against Purdue offered what felt at the time like a cure for those woes, but whatever progress had been made vanished against 12 seed James Madison, which never trailed on its way to a comfortable win.

The loss to the Dukes marks the seventh consecutive year that the Badgers failed to get past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, though in one of those years, 2020, the event was canceled because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While there has been no indication coach Greg Gard’s job is in danger and though there isn’t palpable fan support for a change in leadership, the program’s relative dip over the past six years has at least caused frustration over Wisconsin’s on-court product and raised questions about its ceiling.

Here’s everything you need to know about Gard’s contract and his record in Madison:

Greg Gard contract details

Gard is working under a contract that has been extended and enhanced in recent years.

In April 2023, Wisconsin’s athletic board approved a one-year contract extension for Gard, whose deal now runs through May 31, 2028.

That year was added to a contract that was approved by the university’s board of regents one year earlier. It was a five-year deal that paid him $3.55 million in total compensation for the 2022-23 season and gave him annual raises of $100,000 through the end of the contract.

The contract was finalized after a 2021-22 season in which the Badgers went 25-8, won a share of the Big Ten regular-season championship and earned a 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

“It is absolutely a commitment to Coach Gard,” Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh said to the Journal Sentinel at the time of the deal. “And it is one that he has earned. The results speak for themselves.”

REQUIRED READING: Badgers bounced from the NCAA Tournament thanks to a plethora of turnovers

What is Greg Gard’s buyout?

Though there’s no immediate need or desire for Gard to lose his job, Wisconsin would owe its basketball coach $12 million as of April 1 of this year if it fired him without cause.

Greg Gard salary

During the 2023-24 season, Gard made $3,765,875 in total compensation — $3.65 million from the school and $115,875 in "other pay" — according to USA TODAY Sports’ coaching salary database.

That figure ranks him 22nd among Division I coaches, though that list does not include data from all private colleges, which are not subject to public records requests for documents like coaching contracts (Duke’s Jon Scheyer, for example, does not have a salary listed).

Among current Big Ten coaches, Gard’s pay is the fifth-highest.

Greg Gard year-by-year record

Gard just completed his eighth full season as the Badgers coach. Prior to becoming the head coach, Gard was an assistant at Wisconsin from 2001-15.

Gard was elevated to head coach in December 2015 following the abrupt retirement of then-Badgers coach Bo Ryan. After serving in the role in an interim capacity, Gard was named the program’s permanent head coach in March 2016.

Since assuming his current position, Gard has won Big Ten coach of the year honors twice and has led Wisconsin to at least 20 wins six times. Here’s a look at his year-by-year record at Wisconsin, beginning with his interim stint in 2015-16:

  • 2015-16: 15-8 (12-6)

  • 2016-17: 27-10 (12-6)

  • 2017-18: 15-18 (7-11)

  • 2018-19: 23-11 (14-6)

  • 2019-20: 21-10 (14-6)

  • 2020-21: 18-13 (10-10)

  • 2021-22: 25-8 (15-5)

  • 2022-23: 20-15 (9-11)

  • 2023-24: 22-14 (11-9)

REQUIRED READING: Greg Gard NCAA Tournament: Record, appearances, year-by-year results for Wisconsin coach

Greg Gard NCAA Tournament record

Wisconsin has made the NCAA Tournament six times under Gard. In those appearances, the Badgers have accumulated a 6-6 record.

That mark, however, is largely propped up by back-to-back Sweet 16 runs in 2016 and 2017, earlier in Gard’s tenure. Over its past four NCAA Tournament appearances, Wisconsin is 2-4 and has not advanced past the second round.

Here is how Gard’s Badgers teams have fared in each of their tournament berths:

  • 2016: Lost Sweet 16

  • 2017: Lost Sweet 16

  • 2019: Lost first round

  • 2021: Lost second round

  • 2022: Lost second round

  • 2024: Lost first round

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Greg Gard contract: Salary, length and more for Wisconsin basketball coach