In the final minute of Saturday’s game against the Indiana Hoosiers, with the Big Ten championship hanging in the balance, Nate Reuvers asked a very simple question — not in actual words, but with his putback basket which sealed sweet victory for the Wisconsin Badgers:
“Remember me?”
That was what Reuvers essentially did when he crashed the glass and scored the basket which tucked away a 60-56 win for Wisconsin, giving the program a coveted and highly improbable conference title after starting 6-6 in Big Ten play.
It was in many ways quite fitting that Reuvers made the decisive play against Indiana. In a season with so many twists and turns, so many shifts in the personality and evolution of this team, Reuvers was — in many ways — the bookend of the journey.
In the start of the season, Reuvers was this team’s leading scorer. He became and generally remained the player most likely to score 13 to 15 points while teammates fluctuated much more wildly (and often). Aleem Ford struggled. Brad Davison struggled. Brevin Pritzl struggled. D’Mitrik Trice struggled. Reuvers struggled at times, to be sure, but his valleys were not as dramatically low as his teammates’ worst performances. Reuvers didn’t struggle for comparatively long periods of time, either. He was usually — though not always — the guy who largely held things together for the Badgers. If other players drifted in and out of competence and consistency, Reuvers was normally the man holding down the fort.
Then, however, when the Badgers ripened into a more complete team and mounted the eight-game winning streak which won the Big Ten title, Reuvers did fall into the background a little. D’Mitrik Trice scored 28 at Michigan, on a night when Ford and Micah Potter scored 18 apiece. Ford and Potter both came on like gangbusters in February, and Trice became the team’s best player on a regular basis.
Reuvers didn’t regress so much as his teammates got better. Reuvers remained important, but he wasn’t as central to the Badgers’ success… because the other players finally began to do their fair share.
Yet, after all that Trice, and Ford, and Potter, and Pritzl, and the other improved Badgers did to make this winning streak and Big Ten title possible, it was Reuvers — the bookend figure in this magical season — who made the winning play in the game which secured the conference championship and brought a fat trophy to Madison.
Nate Reuvers didn’t have much help in November or December. He got it in February. In early March, he was the one who sealed Wisconsin’s most improbable Big Ten championship.
It all feels very fitting. It is definitely a richly-deserved honor for Nate Reuvers.