Greg Gard hints at 'Moneyball approach' as Wisconsin basketball adjusts to NIL landscape
Greg Gard outlines Wisconsin’s Moneyball approach to roster building as the Badgers staff adjusts to college basketball's evolving NIL landscape.
It’s one thing to lose in the NCAA Tournament in Round 1 and spend the weeks that follow picking apart what went wrong on the court. It’s another to hear your head coach explain, in plain terms, the financial environment his program is trying to navigate while doing it.
That’s where this conversation gets more interesting.
Because when Greg Gard recently discussed the Wisconsin men’s basketball team’s offseason approach, the takeaway wasn’t panic. It was clarity. The Badgers’ staff knows exactly what they are up against. They know what they need to improve on after a season that ended in a 5-12 upset loss to High Point. And they know that they are operating in a market where keeping up financially is a fight that never really stops.
“You have to have a top 10 offense, and you have to get your defense close to the top 25,” Gard explained. “Obviously, we were not in the top 25 defensively. So, those are the things that you continue to evaluate and tweak, and some of it’s the adjustment of different personnel.”
That part matters because it reminds you this offseason isn’t just about money. It is also about fit, identity, and correcting what held Wisconsin back. The Badgers had a top-10 offense in the country a year ago, but the defensive tradeoff eventually caught up with them, finishing No. 55 in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency. Gard knows that. He owned it.
So, Wisconsin’s roster construction from here has to reflect it. But it would be naive to act as if the basketball conversation exists in a vacuum.
Under the new revenue-sharing model, programs work with a capped pool — roughly $20.5 million annually — that is distributed across sports, with Wisconsin men’s basketball projected to receive around 15–16% of that as a baseline. But anything beyond that number, which is necessary to stay competitive in today’s market, has largely been up to Gard and his staff to raise on their own through NIL donors and outside support.
This is also about what resources Wisconsin men’s basketball is actually working with and what it has had to do behind the scenes to keep pace. Gard said out loud what most fans already suspected: the Badgers aren’t operating with an NIL budget that ranks in the top third of the Big Ten.
“We’re continually trying to grow it, through third-party and outside donations,” Gard said of Wisconsin’s NIL funds. “It’s grown exponentially. It’s grown almost 15 to 20-fold, I would say, since its start. But the market has gone bananas. It’s gone up another 35 this year from last year.
“You’ve had to keep growing it to keep your head above water. And we’re not anywhere near the top of our league. But we have been able to grow it and put it in a good position. With how the market is playing out and even retention has taken a huge jump, there are challenges that come with it.”
That is probably the most revealing part of all of this, even if it doesn’t come as a surprise. Wisconsin’s staff has not been sitting around waiting for help to arrive. They have clearly put in real work to grow that number. But there is a substantial difference between growth and advantage.
There is a difference between increasing your program’s NIL budget and actually gaining ground in a conference where others are spending at a different level. It’s not just theoretical anymore. Wisconsin saw it play out in real time when star guard John Blackwell entered the transfer portal.
