RYAN EVANS
"You're going to get more of a feel for the game with oppor- tunity," Evans said. "And with more opportunity, you're going to get more confidence.''
From this standpoint, the Badgers are better equipped to compete with some of their more athletic opponents with Evans on the floor — as- suming that he's executing the system. "But he has to realize you just can't play with athleticism; you just can't get away with that,'' Gard said. "Eventually you're going to run into teams that are smarter, craftier, more experi- enced.
"And that's when you have to be able to do some of those other fundamental things to go hand-in-hand with what you can do athletically. He's starting to figure out what he can and can't do.''
What Evans had done is give this team a much needed lift with his early season play. "The best defenders and best rebounders are self-driven,'' said Gard, adding that the Badgers need Evans playing at a constantly high level "but that doesn't mean he has to score 25 every night.'' On the contrary, the Badgers need Evans to play with tenacity every possession on defense, whether he's involved on the ball or off. That's where he has to become more instinctive. "That has to come from within him,'' Gard
said.
That's starting to come to the surface. "Being effective on defense is always a starting point,'' Evans said.
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