Kobe King Frustrated with the direction of the program

He isn’t alone. This program is dead on arrival so long as Gard and his shit system strangle the life out of every player of any skill level. 

It isn’t salvageable. And this is a message to all other recruits... come here to watch your game die under the weight of perimeter passes and deep 2s jacked up with 3 seconds on the shot clock. 

Gard is obviously a good recruiter. His program is still dying. 

Kobe was supposedly a big part of recruiting the Davis brothers, so this is odd.  

I'm frustrated with the program too, but bailing on your teammates right before a road trip is pretty shitty

He's not wrong. I'm done with Gard. I can't bear to watch this team. I've tried and I just can't do it. So painful to watch.

BTW, I loved watching Dick Bennett's teams. They played with so much more fire and passion.

He is wrong, he took a scholarship to play, quit after the year, not on your teammates. 

NOPE! You better take care of yourself first in this world.

The hiring of Gard was a mistake.  It’s that simple. 

Ryan had issues for sure but surprised that they didn’t conduct an official search at the time and basically gave him the job. 

Time to turn the page - as they should have done a year or two years ago.  The try hard crowd will hate it but this team has zero chance to win at a high level with little talent 

King is gone.

https://247sports.com/college/...amp;utm_content=Link

Pretty shitty to leave in January.  Kids leave, I get it, but the coach picking him up next has to pause.  

I'm assuming there will be reports of trauma of some kind if he learned anything from the Potter situation

Damn........La Crosse’s claim to fame for the Badgers, is a kid that thinks he’s BETTER THEN THE TEAM.??  

Wisconsin guard Brad Davison has been suspended one game for striking Iowa's Connor McCaffery in the pelvic region as he fought past a screen during Monday's 68-62 loss, according to Jeff Borzello of ESPN.

Davison was hit with a flagrant 1 foul during the game for his actions.

Tschmack posted:

The hiring of Gard was a mistake.  It’s that simple. 

Ryan had issues for sure but surprised that they didn’t conduct an official search at the time and basically gave him the job. 

Time to turn the page - as they should have done a year or two years ago.  The try hard crowd will hate it but this team has zero chance to win at a high level with little talent 

If there was even a remote chance that Tony Bennett would have considered Wisconsin at the time....

Blame Bo Ryan for not keeping his pants on and basically being forced to quit midyear. Even minus Dekker and Frank, that team was still loaded and any coach would have likely made the NCAA. 

This sums up the Herro situation, and why King has buyer’s remorse. Pretty much ends Wisconsin Badgers Basketball recruiting...

No matter what, quitting on your team mid-year is a POS move. I completely understand Tyler Herro's decision. He didn't come to Wisconsin, get three years of commitment from the university, play half a season as a featured player, and then bail because the coaching staff didn't blow sunshine for him. Herro's stock went up and he broke a non-binding verbal commitment. Unless Gard told King he was benching him for the rest of the year, finish the year and then transfer. 

Kobe King is just a selfish AAU player who isn't on the NBA track he thought he might be. 

34 suspended.

Pikes Peak posted:

34 suspended.

Thanks Goldie

That's just nuts.

El-Nuke-the-Hurricanes-Bong posted:

Pretty shitty to leave in January.  Kids leave, I get it, but the coach picking him up next has to pause.  

I'm assuming there will be reports of trauma of some kind if he learned anything from the Potter situation

They will pause...for 0.0012 seconds.

Blair Kiel posted:

That's just nuts.

I see what you did there.

Kobe King speaks: 

https://madison.com/wsj/sports...91-c03e908d1b0a.html

I don’t think he’s tossing shade on his way out- I think there’s a epidemic on that team and it’s growing. I would not be surprised if Ford is one of the guys unhappy- I’ll bet it’s also Pritzl. 

Gard’s losing this team. It’s undeniable. Alvarez cannot ignore this, or else the program will be lost. 

Music City posted:

I would not be surprised if Ford is one of the guys unhappy-

Perhaps... but the point stands. The Gard era needs to end. 

Greg Gard currently has the 8th best win percentage of any big ten coach since 1980.  Some of the names ahead of him are Bob Knight, Gene Keady, Tom Izzo, and Bo Ryan (who is #1).  He took over for a team that was disjointed and lost to UW-Milwaukee and led them to a Sweet 16 appearance in his first partial year.  The two incoming recruiting classes are considered two of the best in Wisconsin history.  So far this season, he has dealt with an unthinkable tragedy in the Howard Moore situation, losing his top assistant coach, which also has to weigh heavily on the players, as well.  The Micah Potter situation left them shorthanded for the start of the year, and they are finally starting to get in a rhythm.  Even with all that, and only one senior on the team, they have been solidly in the NCAA tourney field all year, despite playing one of the toughest schedules in the country.  Maybe all of you that want the Gard era to end could explain why.  

Looks like he needs an extension 

Because he’s not Bo Ryan or Dick Bennett that’s why. 

You can only extract so much out of average to above average players because in the end the talent disparity will likely catch up with you. 

What’s troubling to me are the Herro and King comments.  Two of the more highly touted in state prospects in recent history.  There’s something going on behind the scenes and it ain’t good. 

The only thing that is going on here is that these 2 guys wanted to be NBA players and knew Wisconsin is not a place where NBA talent comes from. Sure Frank and Sam are the most recent but even they are mostly fringe players, not stars.  There have been a few others, Devin Harris probably being the best.  Herro recognized this and went elsewhere.   King did not.  He really had no reason to leave, he was playing lots of minutes and leading team in B1G scoring.  If he thought the program wasn't playing up to his idea of what was needed to become an NBA star he should never have come to Wisconsin in the beginning. The least he should have done is finish the year.   Where do any of you think King would be on Izzo's or Coach K's team?  Not getting the minutes or points  he was getting at Madison. 

ammo posted:

The only thing that is going on here is that these 2 guys wanted to be NBA players and knew Wisconsin is not a place where NBA talent comes from. Sure Frank and Sam are the most recent but even they are mostly fringe players, not stars.  There have been a few others, Devin Harris probably being the best.  Herro recognized this and went elsewhere.   King did not.  He really had no reason to leave, he was playing lots of minutes and leading team in B1G scoring.  If he thought the program wasn't playing up to his idea of what was needed to become an NBA star he should never have come to Wisconsin in the beginning. The least he should have done is finish the year.   Where do any of you think King would be on Izzo's or Coach K's team?  Not getting the minutes or points  he was getting at Madison. 

Kobe King just isn't as good as he thinks he is, and before he went to Madison he probably never had much criticism of his game. He's always seemed tentative and soft. 

Once a guy to ascends to the level Herro did right before he recommitted, the parasites really come out. There's about a 50/50 chance that some money changed hands when Herro went to Kentucky. Most of the guys that go to Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, etc. are getting something under the table. I don't want Wisconsin to do that - ever. I would hope that the people that complain about Diamond Stone, Looney, Herro, etc. going out of state for college don't want Wisconsin to get to that level of corruption

As for Herro, good for him. He's a legit NBA #2 guard who is going to make tens of millions. That wasn't apparent until the summer before his senior year of high school. That's when the shoe guys and college basketball underworld started showing interest.

Does anyone honestly believe that he'd have not been good had he gone to Wisconsin? He's about 5 levels above Kobe King. To compare them is ludicrous. 

ammo posted:

The only thing that is going on here is that these 2 guys wanted to be NBA players and knew Wisconsin is not a place where NBA talent comes from. Sure Frank and Sam are the most recent but even they are mostly fringe players, not stars.  There have been a few others, Devin Harris probably being the best.  Herro recognized this and went elsewhere.   King did not.  He really had no reason to leave, he was playing lots of minutes and leading team in B1G scoring.  If he thought the program wasn't playing up to his idea of what was needed to become an NBA star he should never have come to Wisconsin in the beginning. The least he should have done is finish the year.   Where do any of you think King would be on Izzo's or Coach K's team?  Not getting the minutes or points  he was getting at Madison. 

He probably thought he was the next Bronson Koenig. They are from the same area of the state. Koenig was hitting huge shots as freshman in high pressure situations. King wants to put up 25 a game on a team that lets him run and gun. 

I'm not up on UW basketball, but I came across this article related to the King situation. The level of misinformation by the press with this situation is pretty fucked up and seemingly may have ruined this guy's career. It's not to say Helland is a victim, every white person should know better than to use that word, even innocently in a secondhand story, but it sounds like he was pretty contrite and everyone seemed to think the matter was done. He's going to have this hanging over his head for a while.  

The events that led to Erik Helland's ouster as strength coach for Badgers men's basketball team

That 70-52 loss to the Golden Gophers became secondary when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported incorrectly during the second half that UW was investigating allegations that a staffer had directed a racial epithet at King. The next morning, the paper reported Helland was the staffer and had been placed on leave.

Eventually, The Associated Press sent out a story on its wire repeating the mistake that a staff member had directed the epithet at King.

It’s not just Herro and King.  What about Henry Ellenson?  What about the Hauser brothers?   

The better players in state do not want to go to Wisconsin.  Having this Erik Helland nonsense won’t help matters. 

What a sad story. Stupid thing for the coach to say, but not everything is a felony.

We are a very weak culture if that is the sort of thing that tears us apart racially.

Can you imagine the backlash there would be today for some episodes of “All In The Family”? Heck, even Happy Days had some incredibly racist episodes.

Blair Kiel posted:

What a sad story. Stupid thing for the coach to say, but not everything is a felony.

We are a very weak culture if that is the sort of thing that tears us apart racially.

To me it doesn't sound like there was truly much of an issue at all. Made a mistake, listened to people he hurt, the matter seemed resolved by everyone. Seems like the press ran with an inaccurate story (possibly based on misinformation from King's camp) and then the athletic department sacrificed this man to avoid an semblance of a scandal. If they could have found any courage to talk about the truth then I doubt they see any serious backlash. 

King, who wasn’t even there when the story was told is going to get a transfer waiver out of this and Helland will pay the price.  I sincerely hope that King was honest about being offended and everything...otherwise it is a pretty low move.

Tschmack posted:

It’s not just Herro and King.  What about Henry Ellenson?  What about the Hauser brothers?   

The better players in state do not want to go to Wisconsin.  Having this Erik Helland nonsense won’t help matters. 

The Hauser brothers bailed on Marquette because they weren't going to get enough shots. Ellenson was a one and done. 

Tyler Herro was more than happy to commit to Wisconsin before he became a superstar prospect. If he hated the style so much, he could have picked any number of other Big 10 type schools to play at that gave him offers before the gig shots got involved. He should just keep his mouth shut at this point and tell the truth - he got a much better offer that he didn't know he'd get. His comments after the fact seem like he's just trying to blame someone else for the fallout around his home town that he didn't go to Wisconsin. He made a choice he was entitled to make, now he seems to want it both ways (that he was forced to go to Kentucky because Wisconsin is a terrible place to play). Just something to consider, Kentucky and Arizona (and Duke, UNC, Kansas) get guys because the shoe companies get involved with some contributions and future promises. Herro had a shoe contract with Nike before he even played a regular season game and coincidentally Kentucky is a Nike school. 

Other than Sam Dekker and Brian Butch, Bo Ryan never got 5 star prospects either. If in-state guys end up that highly recruited (Herro, Diamond Stone, Kevon Looney) they are not likely going to end up at Wisconsin or most other Big 10 programs. Most Big 10 schools aren't corrupt enough (except Maryland) to play that game well enough. Tony Bennett can't even get 5 star recruits at Virginia and they just won a title.

If they aren't quite 5 star, one and done NBA recruits but they think they are (Hausers, Ellenson, etc.) they don't want to go anyplace where they have to do anything other than run and gun. Of all these guys, only Herro has succeeded in the NBA. Ellenson was almost a lottery pick, but can't stick anywhere in the NBA because he never fixed some flaws in his game. When was the last time anyone heard from Diamond Stone? 

I'm not a huge Gard fan, but unless you want the Badger program to sink to the level of Kentucky, Arizona, UNC, Kansas, and Duke (Zion's mother was hired by Nike as a consultant while he was in high school), they are never going to compete consistently at that level. 

justanotherpackerfan posted:

King, who wasn’t even there when the story was told is going to get a transfer waiver out of this and Helland will pay the price.  I sincerely hope that King was honest about being offended and everything...otherwise it is a pretty low move.

Of course King is using it to get a transfer waiver and it's a low move. From reading the Madison.com article, everyone involved (Helland, Tucker, the player that expressed the concern) handled it exactly how you'd want it handled. Alando Tucker used it as a teaching moment. It's literally how an educational institution is supposed to operate. One way to interpret King's quote below is "give me what I want or else I'll make this an issue."

As the meeting wrapped up and the group was discussing an amicable split without burning any bridges, King said he wasn’t going to say anything about the “thing with coach E.”

I'm as socially liberal as they come and fully support enforcing standards against hate speech with some first amendment protections, but if this is all Helland did and there isn't some additional back story we aren't hearing, then firing someone for this is completely unethical and is an embarrassing new low for the University. By this logic, if the coaches had the team watch a Civil Rights movie in which the actors used that word, then the same complaint could be made. That would be that some players were uncomfortable hearing that word even when it clearly wasn't being directed at them and being told in the context of a story about an event that happened previously. 

It will be interesting where King ends up. I would bet there was some back channel communication before he left the program and he already knows where he's going when the dust settles.