Badgers outshine one-and-dones

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. The pundits and commentators were filled with so much excitement — and so much hyperbole. All they needed was one team, America’s team, to deliver one more win, and the moment could be remembered forever. The headlines were even already written.

“Wisconsin Saves College Basketball.”

Frank Kaminsky wasn’t the hero we deserved, but was certainly the hero we needed. Sadly, tragically, heartbreakingly, the 6-foot-11 warrior came up just short. His Wisconsin Badgers — our Wisconsin Badgers — fell to Duke in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game on Monday, and all hope was lost.

O.K., it wasn’t going to be that bad. The buildup to the final game was actually relatively reasonable. But I briefly wanted to pay tribute to all the fantastic sportswriting around the country that would have been if Wisconsin had held on to win.

Nonetheless, this year was a big year for college basketball. The final team cutting down the nets might not have been exactly who most fans would have predicted or hoped for going into March. But the tournament and overall season showed the sport is in a much better condition than a lot of sportswriters said it was in at the start of the tournament. Though it was a slow year for USC men’s basketball, the general state of the sport bodes well for the Trojans eventually becoming competitive.

I did jump onto the Badger bandwagon just a little bit on Monday, so I was a little disappointed to see them finish without raising the trophy. Though there was obviously a great deal of exaggeration behind the introduction, there’s always some truth to that which gets blown out of proportion.

The biggest critique of college basketball highlights exactly what makes Wisconsin so unique and likable. The recent history of the sport has been characterized as the one-and-done era, where most of the top players on top teams spend only a year playing in college before declaring to play professionally. Because NBA rules require amateur players to wait at least one year after graduating high school before being eligible to enter the draft, the NCAA becomes concentrated with guys who probably have the talent to play in the pros right out of high school but don’t stay in the NCAA long enough to really develop as amateur players.

In comes Kaminsky.

The aforementioned center-stretch forward wasn’t recruited that highly out of high school, but he ended up at Wisconsin, a solid Big Ten program. He didn’t amount to much his first two seasons on the court, getting only a couple of minutes a game for the Badgers, but he had a breakout junior year, averaging about 14 points a game and leading Wisconsin to the Final Four. When the Badgers got knocked out by Kentucky that year in the semifinals, Kaminsky could have called it quits and gone to the pros as a solid NBA prospect, but he decided to stay his for his senior season to get another crack at the national championship.

Sure enough, Kaminsky got his second chance. Wisconsin knocked out previously undefeated Kentucky in this year’s Final Four, a monumental upset — no exaggeration this time — to avenge last year’s loss and earn a spot in the final. He then scored 21 points and nabbed 12 rebounds in the championship game against Duke, though it was just shy of what the Badgers needed for a national title in their 68-63 loss.

Besides just Kaminsky, Wisconsin really was a different brand of basketball than Duke and Kentucky, the two biggest favorites going into the tournament. The team relied on other upperclassmen like Josh Gasser, Sam Dekker, Duje Dukan and Traevon Jackson. Of the seven Badgers who got minutes in the final, four were seniors, one was a junior, two were sophomores, and none were freshman. Duke on the other hand started three freshmen in the final, while Kentucky started two in semifinal.

Beyond just the roster, Wisconsin played a very team-oriented style of basketball. It seemed like all five guys on the floor were capable of driving to the hoop and shooting from beyond the arc. Someone would drive, draw help, kick the ball out to a teammate. He would then drive and draw more help, and they would cycle through this several times during the shot clock before someone would settle for an open shot. Duke, on the other hand, was much more reliant over the season on dishing the ball down to star freshman center Jahlil Okafor on the low post before he would dump in a layup.

Not that Duke didn’t play         team-oriented basketball. In fact, Duke’s success in the final arguably was because the Blue Devils had unusually balanced scoring — Kaminsky did a really good job getting Okafor into foul trouble , but other Blue Devil freshmen stepped up. But there was a clear difference in the type of system the teams ran.

When you combine the type of players on Wisconsin’s roster with the system the Badgers coach Bo Ryan ran on offense, you see the case in point for the four-year player. Wisconsin ran a beautifully efficient offense — the Badgers led the nation in points per possession — with so many threats from every spot on the court, but that system only works if players have time to develop into complete packages over their four years in college.

Okafor, for example, is a dominant post presence and will make quite a living in the NBA posting up from the low blocks, but he isn’t exactly a slick ball handler or sharp shooter from outside. On the other hand, Kaminsky can score from the low post as well, but he can also handle the ball like a guard and hit            long-range jumpers pretty consistently. Having a guy who can score inside and hit three-pointers really stretches the defense and opens up the floor for an offense. Though he would trade it in a heartbeat for Okafor’s national championship ring, Kaminsky did beat out Okafor for the national player of the year award for being that all-around threat.

That’s what makes this championship result disappointing for a sports fan like me. While watching talents like Okafor work their craft in the college game is fun to watch, there really is something inspiring about watching a group of guys build up over four years then win the championship in their senior year. Without getting too dramatic again, Wisconsin’s loss is almost an indictment on the American dream, or the idea that hard work and perseverance will eventually win over pure talent or circumstance.

With all that being said, it’s very important for fans not to hold some kind of judgement against one-and-done players. Okafor will almost certainly declare for the draft this year. While the storybook ending would be for him to have fallen just short this year as a freshman, stick around Duke until delivering that championship then finally win it all in 2018, these guys aren’t subjects for our entertainment. The fact that many of the best prospects leave college and declare for the draft as early as possible doesn’t make them sellouts. Some of them might come from a disadvantaged background and need to sign a professional contract to take care of their family. The guys who stick around for four years probably don’t have that pressure.

Ultimately, though, the fact that Wisconsin didn’t win the championship doesn’t mean the    four-year model is dead. Just by making it to the final actually proves the opposite. The Badgers claimed 36 victories this season, won the highly competitive Big Ten, qualified as a No. 1 seed, survived the first four rounds of the tournament, upset one of the most highly touted teams in recent history in the Final Four and were neck-and-neck with the eventual national champion in the final. Five points doesn’t change all that.

This is really good news for many programs around the country, such as USC. Sure, the team watching one shining moment at the end of the season wasn’t really watching its first shining moment, and the national powerhouses such as Duke, Connecticut and Kentucky seem to have an oligopoly on both the five-star recruits and national championships. But it’s possible for a group of good coaches and great players to eventually develop into a consistent Final Four team.

So thank you, Wisconsin, Frank Kaminsky, Bo Ryan and every other member of this year’s Badger team. Thank you for saving college basketball.

Now if only someone could figure out how to save USC basketball.

Luke Holthouse is a sophomore majoring in policy, planning and development, and digital and broadcast journalism. His column “Holthouse Party,” runs on Wednesdays.