INDIANAPOLIS—Wisconsin was considered the jovial team of jokesters who strapped video cameras to their chests, teased stenographers and asked each other silly questions at news conferences.
Of course, this jolly exterior wasn’t always most telling of their nature on the court.
“They have their fun,” Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan said last week. “Believe me, when they get on the practice court, they’re looking at film, they’re playing in the games, they understand what competition is about.”
That stealthy predator mentality was perhaps never so evident as Saturday night, when the top-seeded Badgers handed Kentucky its first loss of the season with a 71-64 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament Final Four victory that propelled Wisconsin into the championship game for the first time since 1941.
The Badgers will face top-seeded Duke in Monday night’s tournament championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium. It will be Ryan’s first championship game and the Badgers’ first since 1941.
The Badgers erupted in celebration at the end and silenced the droves of Kentucky fans who mostly filled the 72,238 seats in the arena. When the team’s unofficial “Jump Around” anthem was played the stadium erupted again.
The victory was super sweet because the Wildcats had beaten the Badgers last season in a Final Four semifinal by one point on Aaron Harrison’s three-pointer in the final seconds.
But that wasn’t the entire motivation for this group of Badgers.
“Last year’s game obviously was motivation, not because of Kentucky, but just because of how far we got,” said Frank Kaminsky, the Benet Academy product who scored a game-high 20 points with 11 rebounds. “That was a hump we wanted to get over. It didn’t matter who was in front of us. We just wanted to get a chance to play for the national title.”
Kentucky was on a quest to become the first undefeated championship team in college basketball since Indiana’s 1976 squad. The Wildcats (38-1) lost in last season’s championship game to Connecticut.
This season’s Kentucky team, filled with National Basketball Association-ready freshmen, was considered an undoubted favorite by many.
“It hurts,” Coach John Calipari said. “I would have loved to go 40-0. We’ll take another stab at it.”
Kentucky, which has become notorious for making big plays down the stretch to finish games, went more than five minutes without scoring late to help the Badgers make a comeback.
“We didn’t finish like we were supposed to,” Harrison said.
The Badgers earned their way to a championship game by outrebounding Kentucky, 34-22, beating the Wildcats 13-6 in second-chance points and ending the game on a 15-4 run.
The rematch with Wisconsin lived up to its Final Four marquee status as the teams were always within single-digit leads of each other. The game was tied 60-60 with two minutes and 38 seconds remaining.
Wisconsin had fallen behind by 60-56 before pulling ahead 64-60.
Harrison drove for a three-point play to draw the Wildcats to within 64-63 with just less than a minute to play.
But Kaminsky hit two free throws with 24.5 seconds left for a 66-63 edge. Karl-Anthony Towns made the first but missed his second free throw on the other end with 16.1 seconds remaining.
Then two free throws from Wisconsin’s Bronson Koenig with 12.2 seconds left sealed the victory, providing a 68-64 edge. Harrison’s three-point attempt for Kentucky with six seconds left hit nothing but air.
“I think the only time we really saw their confidence rattled was at the end of the game,” Kaminsky said of the Wildcats. “We finally took that lead. We weren’t going to look back.”
The victory now gives Wisconsin another revenge game.
Duke was one of only three teams to beat the Badgers in the regular season with an 80-70 victory in Madison, Wisconsin, last December 3.
“You know, they got us,” Ryan said. “So maybe we’re going to try to get them.”
Shannon Ryan / Chicago Tribune
Image credits: AP