Wisconsin Basketball: Remembering Frank Kaminsky’s collegiate career
The Leap: Frank Kaminsky as a junior (2013-14)
The Wisconsin Badgers entered the 2013-14 season ranked 20th in the country. That seemed about right. They were getting Gasser back from injury to go along with Brust and Jackson in the backcourt. Dekker had a full season of college basketball under his belt and was no doubt headed for the starting lineup.
The freshmen class looked solid on paper. They landed a four-star Bronson Koenig from La Crosse, WI. Then there was three-star Nigel Hayes from Toledo, OH to go with Vitto Brown and Riley Dearing.
In the starting lineup, Frank Kaminsky finally had a spot all to himself. Dukan was back but certainly didn’t have the inside presence of Kaminsky. In addition, Evan Anderson never caught on in Madison and the big man position was all Frank’s.
In the first two games of the year, Kaminsky only put in 10 points while logging over 20 minutes in each. He was then able to go off for 16 in what looked like a step in the right direction. Oh, and then he did this against North Dakota:
In what was a career-high and a Badger single game-high, Kaminsky dropped in 43 points in that game. He shot 76% from the field, made all six of his 3-pointers and went 5-for-6 from the line in 28 minutes. That right there was his coming out party.
A center who didn’t average less than 3 points per game in his first two seasons poured in 43 in just the fourth game of his junior year. It doesn’t matter who it was against. 43 is a special night.
The win over North Dakota pushed the Badgers to 4-0 on the year. The team did not stop there. They swept right through non-conference play and won their first three in the Big Ten to start the year 16-0. Through that time, Frank Kaminsky averaged almost 12 points per game. He also had knocked down 21 3-pointers and did everything you wanted from a big man in terms of rebounding and blocking shots.
The Badgers then began to struggle, however. After the winning streak was snapped, Wisconsin went 1-5. With February getting underway shortly afterward, the team needed to turn things around. Kaminsky and company did just that. The big man only failed to score double-digit twice more and their one loss came at the end of the season to a Nebraska team who was headed to the NCAA Tournament.
The team was fueled all season by their junior big man, who made one of the biggest leaps in production by any Wisconsin basketball player ever. Kaminsky ended the season averaging just under 14 points per game, 6.3 boards, 1.7 blocks, and one 3-pointer per game.
Wisconsin finished second in the Big Ten to Michigan and eventually lost to Michigan State in the semifinals of the conference tournament. The Badgers landed a No. 2 seed for the first time since 2007 and were looked at as a dark horse to make a run.
Of course, every Badger fan remembers what happened next. Wisconsin rolled through the competition and reached the Final Four thanks to Frank and the developing role players around him. By the time the Final Four game against Kentucky came around, Koenig and Hayes had developed into nice freshmen who could play substantially. Dukan could also splash threes off the bench and Wisconsin had a chance at getting to the Championship.
However, in the Final Four, Kaminsky struggled all night and finished with a tournament-low 15 points. The senior Brust and the sophomore Dekker both had 15, but the Wildcats came on top with a three-pointer near the end to seal the Badgers’ fate. Despite being a few seconds away from making the National Championship game, the Badgers knew they had a teaching moment at hand.