BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Ten years later, Brian Butch still can't believe what happened. Or how it happened.
"I was speechless," he admitted. "Everybody knows if I'm speechless, it's a big deal."
What left the talkative Butch at a loss for words was Wisconsin's dramatic 67-66 win over No. 9 Texas in the final non-conference tune-up before the start of the 2008 Big Ten season.
It was the first road victory over a Top-10 opponent in 27 years; one of the many highlights for a UW team that won 31 games and the Big Ten's regular season and tournament championships.
The Badgers featured the No. 1 scoring defense (54.4) in the nation and a balanced offense. Five different players scored at least 20 points in the first five games of the conference season.
Freshman Jon Leuer had 25 at Michigan; Butch had 22 against Iowa; Trevon Hughes had 22 against Illinois, Michael Flowers had 23 at Penn State; and Marcus Landry had 21 against Northwestern.
"Everyone played big when they needed to play big – when their number was called – and that's obviously how championships happen," Butch said. "That was a special group."
Along with some of his former Wisconsin teammates, Butch will return Sunday to the Kohl Center to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of that memorable 2007-08 season.
To this day, the Texas win is still among his fondest memories.
"It was one of the only games where emotionally I had nothing to say afterwards," Butch recalled. "Honestly, when people say they are speechless, I never understood until that moment.
"I knew that we could be good. I just didn't know how good we could be. But then we won at Texas, and it was the way we won, I knew we were on track to do something really special."
After playing 39 gritty minutes, Joe Krabbenhoft, a raw-boned 220-pound junior out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, felt something special was happening, too. And he was not given to hyperbole.
"It was maybe the greatest locker room of all time that I was a part of," said Krabbenhoft, now a UW assistant coach. "It was just the way the game ended and who we beat… without Trevon."
The night before the game, Hughes was injured during practice, a major blow since the sophomore guard was leading the team in minutes played (31) and points (15).
Without him, the road assignment became that much more daunting for the Badgers because the Longhorns' strength was in the backcourt with guards D.J. Augustine and A.J. Abrams.
"We got our identity from our coach, there's no other way of putting it," Krabbenhoft said of head coach Bo Ryan. "When Trevon went down, he (Ryan) didn't hang his head, he didn't skip a beat.
"Practice continued. It was the Next-Man-Up mentality. There's no one better at that than Coach Ryan. We adopted his mentality and played with his grit and determination.
"We just took on his unwillingness to flinch when a guy would go down. So, we just went out and competed. We didn't know any better than to think that we were going to win."
Jason Bohannon, a sophomore 3-point specialist, replaced Hughes in the lineup and made his first career start. Bohannon had 10 points, three more than his backcourt partner, Michael Flowers.
Even though he took only six shots, and scored just two baskets against Texas, Flowers had one of the biggest takes-and-makes of the season; a game-winning triple with 2.7 seconds left.
He then stole the in-bounds pass flipping the ball high in the air to kill the clock and seal the win.
"Coach Ryan always preached and teached that you have to be in the moment and you have to be ready for every situation," said Flowers, a tenacious senior from Madison La Follette.
"Everybody wants to hit a game-winning shot but to do it in the fashion that I did – with what it meant to me off the court with the Bass family there – just made everything even more worthwhile."
Flowers had been corresponding with Adam Bass (a UW alum) and his wife Jamie (a Texas alum) whose 5-year-old son Max Bass was a cancer survivor and huge fan of Flowers. Both wore No. 22.
The Bass family made the trip to Austin from their home near Washington, D.C. and it was the first time that Max and Michael had met face-to-face. Max even turned over his jersey to Michael.
Flowers considered it to be his good luck charm.
"We all knew what Mike was capable of – moments like that (in Texas)," Krabbenhoft said. "We were so happy to see him get the credit that he deserved because he had put in so much hard work.
"It was kind of his moment – his moment in Badger history."
Butch had one of his own daggers; a game-winning, banked 3-pointer at Indiana.
"You could really tell that Brian wanted to have an exceptional senior year," Flowers remembered. "And that trickled down to everyone else and put everyone on the same page."
Butch's junior year ended in pain and frustration in late February at Ohio State. Falling to the floor, he landed awkwardly on his right elbow and dislocated it – a most gruesome sight.
The Badgers not only lost Butch for the remainder of the season but they lost their Big Ten title showdown to the Buckeyes, 49-48, a bad omen of things to come in the post-season, sans Butch.
"As a group, we were so close to a regular season Big Ten title, and a conference tournament title with a team that we thought was built to go to a Final Four," Krabbenhoft lamented of UW's 2006-07 team.
Despite playing close to home at Chicago's United Center, the Badgers, who had been briefly ranked No. 1 in the country (Feb. 19), got upset by No. 7 seed UNLV in a second round NCAA game.
"It was a really emotional, stressful year for our team," Flowers acknowledged. "But going through that gave us the attitude and focus that we had for our senior year."
Krabbenhoft agreed.
"We had a taste of it," he said. "We were so close to so many goals and milestones. We learned from that experience. We learned why we came up short in some areas; what worked and what didn't.
"We didn't necessarily have an Alando Tucker (who graduated) but we had some really good players that did some great things – just not quite at Alando's level of 20 points a game."
Tucker left his mark on the 2007-08 team. (After a 10-year professional career, he has returned to campus as the Director of Student-Athlete Engagement; a job that he began this week.)
"He taught us how to get things done, how to lead, how to prepare, how to work every day in practice," Krabbenhoft said. "He really set the tone and you could still feel his presence in the program."
After advancing to the Sweet 16 (for what was then only the fourth time in UW history), the Badgers were upended by Davidson and a skinny guard by the name of Curry, Steph Curry who had 33.
"Maybe the best player in the world got you and maybe it was not so much of an upset as you originally thought," Krabbenhoft reflected. "But I'd like to play that one over again."
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Going into the 2007-08 season, Butch was motivated to prove that he could stay healthy for a full schedule which he did while leading the team in scoring (12.4) and rebounding (6.6).
But it went much deeper than any personal satisfaction. "We didn't finish the job," Butch stressed. "As good of a team as we had the year before, we didn't win anything."
It was a driving force for everyone.
"What made that team special was that everybody bought in," Butch said. "When we came back the next season, we had a vision, we had a plan on what was supposed to be done.
"I thought we were mentally tougher than everyone else that we played."
Krabbenhoft was the poster boy for mental and physical toughness.
"Every player who has played with Joe – going back to junior high or whatever – would probably say that Joe is one of the best teammates that they've ever played with," Flowers said.
"He was super-supportive and he would literally run through walls for you and the entire team. He didn't take anything from anybody. He was a tough guy. And, clearly, a leader."
Senior Greg Stiemsma was another tough guy; an imposing 6-11, 260-pound shot blocker. He helped get the Badgers to the Sweet 16 with 14 points and seven rebounds against Kansas State.
"Greg was an enforcer, he was very intimidating," said Flowers. "He was underrated. He didn't get a lot of attention and the respect he deserved for his physicality and, quite frankly, his talent."
The same could be said of Landry who averaged 11 points and 5 rebounds. He was second-team All-Big Ten and the Most Outstanding Player of the conference tournament.
"He was a do-everything forward with the ability to guard different positions," Krabbenhoft said of Landry who was married and had a brother (Carl) who starred at Purdue.
"He was just an overall good player who didn't have many weaknesses in his game."
Butch was a consensus first-team All-Big Ten selection. Flowers was on the second team with Landry and All-Defensive team with Krabbenhoft. Bohannon was the Big Ten's Sixth Man of the Year.
"Anytime you have a shooter like J-Bo, it widens your margin for error," Flowers said. "He forced the other team to respect his range which opened up driving lanes.
"I remember telling him, 'Dude, you need to shoot the ball 15 times a game because you're that good.' But he was humble and modest and didn't want to force anything. Man, he was a great asset."
Maybe the most unsung asset was senior Tanner Bronson, the captain of the scout team; a former walk-on who had spent one year as a team manager.
"What he did for the second squad, 6 through 10, was set the tone for practice," Flowers said. "Whether he was guarding me or Trevon, he didn't allow us to take a possession off."
Everyone assumed that Bronson would get into coaching and he has. This season, he's an assistant on Lamont Paris' staff at Chattanooga. Everyone assumed the same thing about Krabbenhoft.
"That was kind of the path that you knew he wanted to be on and he had talked about it during his playing days," Butch said. "You could see that coming for sure."
Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Butch is a coaching associate with the Wisconsin Herd, the G-League affiliate of the Milwaukee Bucks. The team is based in Oshkosh; 10 minutes from his home.
"It doesn't come as a surprise to me," Krabbenhoft said. "For a 5-man, he almost thought like a point guard at times. He was such a smart player. He just sees the game the way most coaches do."
Flowers is out of town and won't be around for Sunday's reunion at the Kohl Center. But he will be there in spirit with Butch and Krabbenhoft and the other returning members of that 2007-08 team.
"Most of us stay in touch," said Krabbenhoft, who's completing his second season on Greg Gard's staff. "When I got the job here, some of the first messages I got were from those 15 other guys.
"That group will be bonded together forever."
