Wisconsin men's basketball coach Greg Gard addresses transfer portal and NIL

MADISON – Wisconsin coach Greg Gard met with reporters before the team’s season-ending banquet Wednesday night at the Kohl Center.

Gard addressed myriad topics but focused mostly on how NIL (Name, Image & Likeness) and the transfer portal have dramatically changed college basketball.

Gard and his staff have seen several players decide transfer since the end of last season, led by starters Chucky Hepburn and AJ Storr.

Storr has committed to Kansas and according to college basketball sources could receive up to $1 million next season. Hepburn has not announced his new program.

The UW staff is in the process of retooling the roster but Gard reiterated Wednesday that the full team might not be in place until the summer.

Selected comments follow.

Greg Gard understands living in the past is not possible

“Here is the first thing everybody needs to understand,” Gard said. “We have to move out of how things were and walk away from yesteryear because we’re in a completely different era. It’s something that we saw coming, quite frankly, for two, three, four years.

“So, anybody that has been shocked, stunned, surprised by anything…it is kind of like the folks that turn on the TV March 10^th and question what happens in the (NCAA) Tournament. Meaning you haven’t paid attention to the rest of the year.

“And if you’re surprised by what has happened with the transfer portal and NIL and where it has grown to, then you haven’t paid attention.

“I think you understand where it has come from. Why it came. Where it is going is what we don’t have an answer to. Because we don’t have an end game in sight. In my position, I have to manage today.

“And then the powers that be at the NCAA, the conference level, congress as they maybe get involved down the road…that is the down the road answer. What I have to focus on is making sure that we are highly competitive in the era we are in.

“And it is different at every school. There’s no two schools that are approaching this the same. There’s no two schools that look at it the same. There is no rulebook or playbook for this and that is one of the issues.”

Greg Gard hasn’t taken personally the decisions of Chucky Hepburn and AJ Storr

“I’m not mad at anybody – specifically Chucky and AJ,” Gard said. “If anybody in their right mind told any of you that you could go triple your income by taking a different job, you’d do it in heartbeat. No questions asked.

“Did we not want to see them go? Of course. Love those two kids. They were great for us. But I understand the landscape we’re in. I would probably tell my kid to do the same thing because the earning power window is really small.

“And when they have those opportunities in front of them, that’s hard to say no to. So I don’t begrudge them at all. We’ve done a real good job of retaining, for the most part. We’ve been really immune to this. We’re like the last one to get the virus, so to speak.”

Why doesn't UW simply write out bigger checks to retain players like Hepburn and Storr?

“Because we have to be fiscally responsible,” Gard said, noting that the program tripled its NIL pool of funds in preparation over the last year. “We’ve been able to do a lot of good things through our resources. And (we) have been relentless in raising those funds. My staff has done a phenomenal job connecting with donors that have been really gracious. But it’s not a bottomless well, so I have to operate in a fiscally responsible way.

“We’re in a good place but you see numbers that are astronomical. That is why I go back to: Every school is different. Every school is approaching it different. Every school has different resources. It is all different.”

Coaching college basketball is like being in the pros – only without any rules

“It is totally different,” said Gard, who began is college coaching career in 1993 under Bo Ryan at UW-Platteville. “You look at all the regulations and stipulations around professional sports. We have none of those. So, we have to, at some point, get reform and get reconstruction of this model…

“I think the first thing is contracts. There has to be something in writing that honors the commitment both ways. That would the starting point. There’s several others. But if there is one thing I think would give a little bit of normalcy to this, it would be that.”

In addition to re-tooling the roster, Greg Gard is in the process of rebuilding his overall staff to adapt to the changing landscape

"I was contemplating (that) for almost a year of where this was going, that we were going to have to adapt and adjust and change," Gard said. "We’re in the process of doing that. The puzzle is on the ground and we’re putting it back together to make sure we address all the needs that I feel we need going forward.

"The world has changed. The game has changed. How we operate has changed. And you’re seeing that publicly every day with the NIL and the portal, but even internally this operation has changed a lot."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin men's basketball coach Greg Gard talks transfer portal, NIL