Too young. Too small. Not deep enough. Last season was a fluke. These were the most frequent comments made by both local and national followers of college basketball about the Wisconsin men’s basketball team before and during the 2002-03 season.
At first, they were vindicated. A 90-80 home loss to Wake Forest in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and a 66-65 loss at Michigan in which UW blew a 15-point second half lead to drop its Big Ten record to 0-2 painfully displayed the aforementioned shortcomings.
So what was the season’s final result? A 24-8 record, setting a school best for wins, a second straight Big Ten regular season title, the team’s first outright since 1947, and a journey to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, where the Badgers were narrowly defeated by the No. 1 seed Kentucky. Yet the way people talked about the Badgers at the outset of the season, one would think they’d have been lucky to receive an NIT invitation.
Truth be told, the Badgers never really cared what anyone thought. They only cared about what they did on the floor, and that, for the most part, was winning.
When the team posted a Big Ten record of 6-3 just under halfway through conference play, people said it was simply because they hadn’t run into any of the conference’s traditional big boys.
So then they promptly knocked off Michigan State and Indiana in back-to-back nationally televised games at the Kohl Center. When a loss at lowly Penn State had people saying they couldn’t win on the road, they went into the snake pits of Iowa and Minnesota and came away with two wins down the home stretch of a close Big Ten race.
For the last two years, Wisconsin has made a production out of proving people wrong. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone, knowing that Bo Ryan, who thrives in the underdog role, is the head coach. After the messy firing of Brad Soderbergh two seasons ago, Pat Richter took a chance on Ryan, the legend of Division III UW-Platteville.
He’d fold under the pressure of Big Ten basketball, disappointed Badger fans said. But so far, the only people that have folded in Madison are Big Ten foes, none of which have beaten Ryan at the Kohl Center. And by the end of this season, Bo was receiving his second straight Big Ten Coach of the Year Award.
Like Rocky Balboa, if you tell him he can’t do something, he’ll do it. And he won’t care what the media says in the process.
Nonetheless, the Badgers weren’t just a group of lucky underdogs. They had talent. Sophomore Devin Harris, playing point guard for the first time in college, played his heart out, averaging 12.7 points and leading the team in assist-to-turnover ratio in the process. He’ll undoubtedly be one of the best guards in the Big Ten for the next few years.
Freshman Alando Tucker, junior Freddie Owens and sophomore Mike Wilkinson matured equally well. At 6-foot-5, Tucker was forced to play against much larger opponents in UW’s small lineup. He averaged 12 points per game and led the Big Ten in offensive rebounds with legs as springy as a grasshopper’s. Like Harris, he is on his way to stardom.
Owens, never an offensive threat before this season, upped his scoring average to 10.3 points per game while still playing his usual rock-solid defense. And Wilkinson, like Tucker, forced to play against bigger opponents, led the team in rebounding and chipped in 10.3 points per game with his deft outside shot.
But of course it was lone senior Kirk Penney who was the heart and soul of the team. On his way to being named a first-team All-Big Ten selection for the second straight year, Penney led the team with 16.2 points and 3.1 assists per game and was second with six rebounds per game.
Yet taking all these numbers into account, the Badgers were above all a complete team. Ask the players about their numbers, and they’ll say the only number they cared about was wins. And they genuinely mean that.
Never was this more evident than in their 61-60 comeback win over Tulsa in the second round of the NCAAs, the Badgers’ paramount win of the season. When Owens’ three-pointer from the left corner touched the bottom of the net, perhaps nobody was happier than Penney. After a dismal three-point game against Tulsa, he was happy to have one more game left in his storied career.
And that game was the valiant 63-57 loss to Kentucky. Nonetheless, with some prized recruits coming in, including McDonald’s All-American Brian Butch of Appleton, expectations should rightfully be higher than ever when the 2003-04 season tips off next fall.
