Josh Gasser’s alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. in the middle of the season. It’s time to wake up and head over to the Kohl Center training facilities for lift.

What propels Gasser and his teammates out of bed? Is it their overall work ethic and desire to get better? Absolutely.

But they also do it for April 5, 2014.

Because no matter how hard the Badgers of the 2013-14 Final Four team try to push the memory of that day out of their heads, it will always be there, and it has served as motivation for this year’s Wisconsin men’s basketball team.

From that day, it is one particular moment that’s especially painful. It’s when Kentucky guard Aaron Harrison elevates from close to 30 feet away over the outstretched hand of Gasser and nails a three-pointer with 5.7 seconds left to put the Wildcats up one and send his team to the national championship game.

“You try not to think about it much. It’s one of those games and moments that you just don’t want to think about, but unfortunately sometimes it creeps in your head a little bit,” Gasser, a fifth-year senior, said. “It’s something that we’ve just put on the back burner and moved on from it, and I think we’ve done a good job of learning from a game like that and pushing the momentum forward and learning from it and getting better from it.”

Gasser, a student of the game who takes preparation and scouting seriously, said he’s never watched film of the game.

Sophomore forward Nigel Hayes wishes he could erase April 5, 2014 from his memory too.

Hayes scored only two points in seven minutes in a year he had been named Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year, averaging 7.7 points and 17.4 minutes per game.

“I feel that I didn’t contribute to the team in a way that I should have,” Hayes said. “As I’ve said before, all I had to do was be average statistically, but I was below average.”

The loss to Kentucky stuck with Hayes on an individual level, as it inspired his rigorous workouts over the summer, he said. The work has clearly translated into improvement, as he now averages 12.4 points per game.

Hayes put the work in to be ready next time he found himself in a situation like last season.

“I worked hard in order to make sure that I was better,” Hayes said. “So that if I’m in that situation again, and here we are in the exact same situation as last year, that I would be able to perform better.”

Junior forward Sam Dekker wishes he could forget April 5, 2014.

Instead, he didn’t allow himself to, by transporting the chair he used in the locker room during last season’s Final Four in Arlington, Texas back to the Badgers’ locker room in Madison.
A locker room renovation displaced the chair (Dekker has no idea where it is), but it served an important purpose.

“It sucks,” Dekker said of losing his chair. “A, that was kind of a cool chair, and B, I used because that was my shrine from the Final Four, remembering we gotta get back.”

Frank Kaminsky wishes he could forget April 5, 2014.

For Kaminsky, the hangover from the game lasted the first few weeks following the final buzzer. But once workouts and preparation for this season started, he used the loss as a motivating factor.

“I haven’t really thought about it much this season because we’ve focused on getting back to the Final Four,” Kaminsky said. “But now is the time where you can remember a moment like that and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

There’s outside motivation too, like this tweet from ESPN talk show host Bomani Jones, which he posted after fifth-year senior Duje Dukan sent out a picture of Wisconsin receiving its Final Four rings.

i totally forgot wisconsin went to the final four.

— bomani (@bomani_jones) July 28, 2014

Hayes said that occurrence is “Exhibit A” of the inspiration behind the “Make ‘Em Believe” t-shirts and motto that have fueled the 2014-15 season.

Now, the Badgers find themselves face-to-face with Kentucky again, no doubt invoking the memories from last season’s game. Gasser knows that while Harrison’s shot was the deciding factor, it’s not the sole reason the Badgers lost.

“We were literally one possession away from a national championship,” Gasser said. “It wasn’t necessarily the last couple of possessions, it could’ve been throughout the entire 40-minute game.

“Obviously it’s a heartbreaking loss, but it makes this year’s team what it is. You just gotta take the positives of it.”

Especially this week, the Badgers have more pertinent tasks to tend to, Hayes said.

“That play is a year behind us,” Hayes said. “And we have more important things, like the games ahead of us, to focus on.”

The task is Kentucky, and a win Saturday night could erase the bad memories from April 5, 2014 from the Badgers’ minds forever.