Wisconsin Badgers: What Now?

By Daniel Tran | Apr 15, 2015

The Wisconsin Badgers’ run through the NCAA Tournament ended in heartbreak. Where do they go from here?

The worst feeling nearing the end of a successful season is knowing that it will all be over soon. There is no way to prepare for the end. The best thing to do is just enjoy the ride for as long as possible and deal with the morose emotions when they come. The Wisconsin Badgers know that struggle.

After a magical run that ended at the National Championship Game at the NCAA Tournament, the Badgers find themselves at home without a national championship and a couple months away from formal team activities. A national championship would have helped with this dead period of withdrawal, but the question remains: Where do we go from here?

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Frank Kaminsky ended his season off on a high note winning four Player of the Year awards, including the coveted John R. Wooden Award. Unfortunately, Wisconsin has seen the last of Kaminsky in a Badger uniform, as this was his final year of eligibility with the university.

Not only that, Wisconsin lost seniors Duje Dukan, Josh Gasser, and Traevon Jackson due their eligibility running out. And to top it all off, Sam Dekker decided to capitalize on his outstanding play during the NCAA Tournament and entered into the NBA Draft with one year of eligibility left to his name.

Losing five of your top seven producers on the team rarely ends up working out for the better, especially when that team beat a 38-0 Kentucky squad in the Final Four. Moving forward, the Wisconsin Badgers are looking at a murky future.

Returning to the team next year will be resident goofball Nigel Hayes, who averaged 12.4 points and 6.2 rebounds for the season. After attempting zero three-pointers during the 2013-2014 season, Hayes showed he could stretch out defenses this past season, hitting 40 three-pointers, and shooting 39.6 percent from beyond the arc for the season.

Joining him in returning from the group of regular contributors is Bronson Koenig, who is coming off a good NCAA Tournament showing. In the Final Four, Koenig hit clutch free throws down the stretch to sink the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats and played solid defense against the Harrison twins. After him, however, the list of guaranteed producers is nonexistent.

Zak Showalter played big in short stretches during the NCAA Tournament, keying a run against the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Sweet Sixteen, but he only averaged 7.6 minutes per game. The rest of the returners are rarely utilized players that combined to average three points per game between five players.

Wisconsin’s incoming Class of 2015 does not feature a game-changing player, but they do have talented people coming in. Brevin Pritzl, the local kid from De Pere, Wisconsin, is a four-star guard looking to fill the void that Gasser left. Pritzl may not be the defensive master that Gasser was, but his offensive game is more developed, and he can pick teams apart from the outside.

Alex Illikainen, a 6’9” power forward from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, is no Frank Kaminsky, but he can do some damage from with his inside-outside game. The problem is that he and Pritzl are not players that can help them sustain their success.

Unless you’re Kentucky in recent years, programs tend to ebb and flow a couple years at a time. Wisconsin has enjoyed two straight years of advancing to the Final Four with a core group of experienced players. Those players are now moving on and there is going to be a drop off in production with younger players coming into the fray.

Without even taking into account how difficult it will be to navigate through the always tough Big 12 Conference, the Wisconsin Badgers are looking at some drop off with all the pieces they are losing this offseason. To expect that will be contending for a national championship or even a spot in the Final Four would be unfair. So, again, I ask: Where will they go from here?

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