Wisconsin's shift from happy-go-lucky to sadness in NCAAs
INDIANAPOLIS — There were fences set up outside the Omni Severin Hotel, a makeshift barrier planned back when optimism outweighed potential heartbreak.
Had Wisconsin beaten Duke to win its first national championship since 1941, a sea of red would have descended upon the Badgers' team hotel late Monday night. And after all the ruckus — and, very likely, an occupancy violation in that lobby — that occurred Saturday after Wisconsin beat Kentucky in the second national semifinal, the hotel was taking no chances. No repeat performances. No extra fans, not those who aren't staying here.
But at 12:34 a.m. Tuesday the fences — and their promise of unbridled joy — were just one reminder of what could have been. No, Wisconsin did not win its first title in 74 years. No, Bo Ryan did not win his first Division I national championship. No, Frank Kaminsky did not cap off his sensational senior season with an NCAA championship trophy.
Instead, there was just this, whatever this is.
Part of it is a pain that sears because of how close it came to not being pain at all. There's the nine-point lead with 13:25 minutes to go, the lead that eventually withered away to nothing. There's the clangs of missed jumpers in the final four minutes, a stretch during which Wisconsin shot just 2-of-9 from the field. There's the glaring second-half free-throw disparity that frustrated Wisconsin in the game's aftermath.
Some Badgers fans lined the fences, filling in gaps along the sidewalk. They waited patiently. A burly police officer told two of them, "If you guys had won, this would have been a lot more fun."
It is, perhaps, the understatement of this NCAA tournament — lest you forget these are the goofy, ridiculous, adorable Badgers. The ones who use big words for no reason at press conferences. The ones who poke fun at their coach, the 67-year-old Bo Ryan, but never in a way that wasn't endearing. The ones who always seemed to enjoy each other's company, and this ride that college basketball takes you on — until, quite suddenly, they got thrown off it.
Earlier, inside a grief-stricken, gutted locker room, Sam Dekker compared the pain of Monday's championship game loss to Duke to falling to Kentucky in the Final Four a season ago. During the last 12 months, he'd seen the tape of the Wildcats seven or eight times. It drove him, pushed him.
"I watched last year's season-ending loss a lot last year," Dekker said. "I don't think I'll watch this one. If I do, it'll be learning for myself.
"But I don't want to go through this again."
He chuckled softly. Two feet to his right, redshirt senior Duje Dukan sat with a white towel over his head. His eyes were freshly red and puffy.
"Honestly, I don't even — I just can't believe that happened," Dukan said. "It's beyond tough. I can't put it into words."
Other teammates tried. They spoke of the game's changing momentum, of Duke freshman Grayson Allen's big night. They tried to reflect on the season they had just finished, and the camaraderie of this particular group. They described how they're dreading how soon they'll be forced to go their separate ways. Kaminsky said he's never been closer to a group of guys in my entire life. "It's just going to be hard to say good-bye," he said.
Particularly because they had all come back to school with a national championship in mind. "We thought this was the group that was going to do it all," Dekker said. "We'd been saying it all year. We weren't afraid of the moment."
They were the guys who came to Wisconsin without one-and-done aspirations. Guys like Kaminsky, who played seven minutes a game as a freshman reserve and developed into the somewhat gangly national player of the year by his senior season.
They were a likable team — both in terms of their offensive prowess and efficiency, but also their off-court cuteness. They were easy to root for.
"This sounds weird and I don't even know if I want my husband to hear this, but if Wisconsin had won, I'd have been OK," said Mickie Krzyzewski, wife of a certain Duke coach. "That's a team I like a lot, and I love Bo Ryan. I watched their team all year. If they were on TV, I'm watching them."
At 12:49, the Wisconsin bus finally pulled up behind its police escort. Fans started cheering and clapping as the bus began to unload, pulling out iPhones to commemorate the worst night of their favorite players' careers in video form.
As the players entered the hotel, they were greeted by more red, and more cheers. Fans were six deep along the roped-off area. "Let's go Badgers!" echoed throughout the lobby. Former Wisconsin star Devin Harris greeted each player with a hug and some encouragement. But it wasn't working, and these Badgers can't take a step back to see the bigger picture, what back-to-back Final Fours mean to a program like theirs.
Not yet. That'll sink in eventually.
For now, though, stoicism has replaced smiles. And a fence blocked them off from the world.