Jerry Petitgoue was a coach’s coach.

Never too busy to answer a question or too stubborn to ask one, he studied every aspect of basketball, watched the videos and did some of his own. He loved the game and shared the love.

Greg Gard, who attended Petitgoue’s camp long before becoming Wisconsin’s head coach, talked a couple of seasons ago about their relationship.

“I’ll get texts from him late at night, or I’ll see something that he tweeted about basketball,” Gard said at the time, “and I’m like, ‘Coach, were you really watching an instructional video at 1 a.m. that you had to text me a question?’”

Asked subsequently, Petitgoue explained: “I never really thought, hey, you know what? It’s about 1 o’clock in the morning.” It was about defense. “He got back to me the next day.”

Now those

See Full Page