Wisconsin’s 2015 Final Four
It is a simple question to ask, but not an easy one to answer. It is a simple A or B choice (with the possibility that one could say “neither” or “both”), but it contains very complicated and competing emotions.
The question is this: Five years later, on what would have been the weekend of the 2020 Final Four, which game lingers more in your memory as a Wisconsin Badger fan — the 2015 Final Four semifinal win over Kentucky, or the championship game loss two nights later against Duke?
Take your time. This is a big question.
It might seem like a stupid question, from both sides of the debate.
Well, DUH, Wisconsin beat a 38-0 team at the Final Four and won its first Final Four game since the 1941 championship game against Washington State. OF COURSE the Kentucky game mattered more!
Well, DUH, Wisconsin had a nine-point second-half lead and was SO CLOSE to winning a national championship in front of 70,000 people on national television… and it was F***ING DUKE we lost to! GRAYSON ALLEN BEAT US! OF COURSE the Duke game mattered more!
Wisconsin made history and gained immortality on Saturday night in Indianapolis. Wisconsin almost made history and almost gained immortality on Monday night in Lucas Oil Stadium.
The 2015 Badgers will always be remembered for ruining Kentucky’s dream of a 40-0 season, which would have been college basketball’s first perfect season since Indiana under Bobby Knight in 1976. Yet, the 2015 Badgers will never be remembered as national champions… because Duke stood in their way and wrested that title from UW’s grasp.
It’s a very complicated question, and there is no definitive right — or wrong — answer. It is very personal, very individual, very much dependent on your story, your lived experience, your journey with the 2015 Badgers and with Wisconsin basketball in general.
The win over Kentucky, in addition to being historic on a national scale (stopping UK’s unbeaten season), gained revenge against the Wildcats for their 2014 Final Four semifinal win over Wisconsin. That made the victory extra sweet for the Badgers and their fans.
The loss to Duke, in addition to denying Wisconsin a first national title in 74 years, occurred to the college basketball team America loves to hate more than any other. The other player — in addition to Grayson Allen — who led the Duke rally down the stretch was Tyus Jones, who was Minnesota-born and almost certainly relished, as a Minnesotan, dealing a Wisconsin team a stinging loss.
The side details of the Saturday victory and the Monday loss are both rich and straight out of a Hollywood script. There were Biblical emotions in both games, a cocktail of boiling hatreds and soaring versions of euphoria. The win over Kentucky could not have been more delicious than it actually was, and the loss to Duke could not have unfolded in a more brutal fashion.
Do you remember the Kentucky win or the Duke loss more, five years later?
Simple question. Complicated emotions. As March turns into April and we contemplate a weekend without the Final Four this year, every Wisconsin fan can think about how the past five years have — or haven’t — changed their minds on this topic.
