To be sure, there was plenty of pressure on the Wisconsin Badgers to win the 2015 West Regional final in Los Angeles. It was known that this was going to be the last rodeo in the NCAA Tournament for Sam Dekker and Frank Kaminsky, two gifted stars who gave the Badgers their best and most formidable team of all time. This was Wisconsin’s first — and still only — No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. With such an achievement comes a great responsibility to live up to the billing. Wisconsin was not going to have nearly as good a team in the following season. Regardless of the off-court drama involving Bo Ryan in the 2015-2016 season — which wasn’t foremost on anyone’s mind in late March of 2015 — the Badgers knew they would enter a less certain, less powerful phase of their existence as soon as the 2015 NCAA Tournament ended. There was plenty of pressure on that 2015 group to maximize its abilities.
Yet, for all the pressure which rested on the Badgers’ shoulders in that 2015 Elite Eight game, the Arizona Wildcats carried more. This is rather obvious.
Wisconsin crossed the threshold one year earlier in Anaheim, beating Arizona in a 1-versus-2 Elite Eight showdown in Southern California. Wisconsin snapped a long Final Four drought (14 years). Bo Ryan got to the Final Four. The program didn’t have to wander in the wilderness anymore.
Arizona, on the other hand, had not made a Final Four since 2001. By losing to Wisconsin in 2014, this reunion in 2015 threw a massive amount of pressure on the Wildcats’ shoulders. They had to restore Arizona’s legacy. They had to return to the Final Four for the first time since 2001. They had to get revenge for the 2014 loss. Sure, Wisconsin faced a lot of pressure, but Arizona had to deal with more.
That was precisely the challenge for the Badgers, then: They had to play a high-stakes game against a team which had waited a full year to get back to the Elite Eight and get it right the second time around. The fact that Arizona got to face Wisconsin — the same team it lost to in the 2014 Elite Eight — only figured to sharpen the Wildcats’ resolve that much more. Wisconsin played a familiar and supremely motivated opponent. As was the case in 2014, playing the game in Southern California — in front of Arizona’s very large alumni base — didn’t make this game especially comfortable for UW.
It didn’t matter.
Wisconsin built an 11-point lead with 8:45 left in regulation and maintained a working margin over the next several minutes. UW still led by eight, 76-68, with 2:30 left. A slight measure of drama entered Staples Center when Arizona’s Gabe York hit a 3-pointer to trim UW’s lead to five, at 76-71, but Sam Dekker said, “I got this.” He splashed a three to build Wisconsin’s lead back to eight. A minute later, when Arizona once again crept within five, Dekker hit one more three to bury the Wildcats for good. Wisconsin had not only defeated Arizona again, it had won much more decisively than in 2014.
It played like the No. 1 seed it was. The Badgers made Final Fours in consecutive seasons for the first time in their history. Dekker and Kaminsky combined for 56 points and affirmed their greatness on a supremely large scale.
The next stop for this Badger bunch: Kentucky in Indianapolis.
We might have a thing or two to say about that game later this week.