Time to Lead
November 10, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Mike Lucas
Wisconsin’s seniors are looking to cement their legacy this season
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Since last March and Wisconsin's hard-to-swallow loss to Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, Nigel Hayes, Bronson Koenig, Vitto Brown and Zak Showalter have all had one.
A senior moment.
But it was a memorable awakening and not any kind of memory lapse.
It was an acknowledgement of what they want out of their final season.
"Yes, I had it after I decided to come back," said Hayes, who withdrew his name from the NBA draft in late May after going through the process of the Chicago combine and auditions with five teams.
"I had, I guess you could say, a little visualization of things that could occur, things that I wanted to occur, things that I knew I had the power and the ability to make manifest for myself and this team.
"I try to convey that to the guys — the importance of it not only being my senior year — but also knowing the opportunity that we have this year to do some great things."
Hayes, a 21-year-old senior from Toledo, Ohio, is the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year; the leading scorer (15.7) on a team that returns 99.7 percent of its scoring, or all but six points from last year.
"As every senior does," Koenig said of his moment, "I just want to leave my legacy. I know I have the capability of being one of … if not the best point guard to ever come out of here.
"Respect to Devin Harris and everything — he was a great point guard and someone I look up to and study actually — I know I have the capabilities to be one of the best.
"Also, I kind of want to finish the deal. I've been so close to winning a national championship and I want to go out there and do it."
Koenig, a soon-to-be 22-year-old senior from La Crosse, Wis., needs 71 points to reach the 1,000 plateau and 27 assists for 250. He has a 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio in 112 career games.
"Obviously, it's my last year and it only makes sense that I want it to be the best," said Brown. "First and foremost as a team, I believe we're poised to do some great things.
"We still have a lot ofto work to do. But our ultimate goal is to make it to the Dance (NCAA tournament) and go all the way."
Brown, a 21-year-old senior from Bowling Green, Ohio, went from averaging 1.8 points per game in 2014-15 to 9.7 last season, the third-largest increase among Big Ten players.
"As one of the four seniors this year," Brown also said of his moment, "I'm in a position where guys are going to be looking up and depending on me.
"I want to be more aggressive all around. That's on offense, defense. That's crashing the boards. A realistic goal for me is to get twice as many rebounds as I did last year (5.0 ppg)."
While Hayes, Koenig and Brown were all members of the 2013 recruiting class — along with Jordan Hill, Aaron Moesch and Riley Dearring — Showalter arrived in 2012 with Sam Dekker.
Showalter, a 22-year-old senior from Germantown, Wis., redshirted his sophomore year. A former walk-on, he has continued to grow by leaps and bounds. Make that burns — leaps and burns — floor burns.
"I know it's my last go-around," said Showalter. "When I went overseas this summer to Greece and Italy, I kind of saw what I could be doing after this season (traveling abroad to keep playing hoops).
"And it kind of made me realize that I want to focus on this season first and not worry about everything else that is on the outside. It opened my eyes to a lot of things. I'm locked into the moment."
Any senior moment is usually accompanied by a flashback to any unfinished business.
To one degree or another, it will be on the minds of each of these players — Hayes, Koenig, Brown and Showalter — when the Badgers open the season Friday night against Central Arkansas.
"Oh, absolutely," Showalter said. "I still haven't won the last game yet. I've seen the 'Road Ends Here' sign multiple times in the Final Four. But I haven't finished the road with a win."
So, there is some unfinished business for this senior class?
"I definitely believe in it — but obviously, we're a different team," Brown said of the UW teams that competed in back-to-back Final Fours. "We have a lot of new guys who haven't been there.
"We know we've been to the top of the mountain. But we haven't been able to put our flag on it. That doesn't mean nothing else matters. The Big Ten comes before that. Every game matters for us."
Koenig was on board with that sentiment.
"We've had a lot of success, and, yeah, we have some unfinished business," he said. "I remember the feeling after we lost to Duke (68-63 in the 2015 NCAA title game). After that heartbreak, I knew it was going to be hard to do it all over again. But I know we're capable of it."
Hayes was not comfortable with the "unfinished business" phrase since it has become so cliché and over-commercialized, to his thinking, as a part of "every cool story" or video for fans.
"To me, as a basketball player and competitor, you want to win," Hayes stressed. "I've won everything that a college kid could win except a national championship.
"It's getting that last final glorious trophy. We know there are a lot of games and a whole lot of things in-between that. But there's nothing wrong with having a goal."
Brown struggled when asked about a personal legacy, let alone one for the seniors.
"I don't think a whole lot about that," he said. "I'm thinking more in the now. Obviously, I look at the past and what our university and our team has been able to do throughout the years.
"And I'm looking forward to the end of the season and what we can do in March. But none of that is possible unless we make it there.
"Last year, we slipped up in our first game of the season and lost to Western Illinois. My main focus is on Central Arkansas and talking care of business with them.
"I'm just going to take it game by game, day by day. The legacy will sort itself out after we do what we're capable of doing." Brown's teammates embraced the legacy topic far more warmly.
"You watch the greats in front of you in the NBA," Hayes said, "and they always mention their legacy or the people around them mention their legacy for them.
"It's the things they've contributed to the games, the things they have brought to the games, how they've impacted the team and other players.
"That's something I want to make sure I do a great job of," he said of making those around him better. "It's in combination with it being my senior year and my last hurrah."
Koenig was even more detailed.
"I know Wisconsin has a rich tradition of winning and solid point guards," he said. "I'm not a prototypical Wisconsin point guard, I guess you could say. So, I want to leave my mark.
"As for my last year here, I want to go back to the way I used to play — breaking guys down, getting past guys, dishing and either making plays for myself or somebody else.
"I thought I kind of got away from that the past couple of years for whatever reasons. Now that I'm prepared, I've got my body right, my mind right, hopefully I can get back to doing that."
Koenig doesn't want to be average or "easily forgotten" after he leaves. Showalter dialed up a saying that he felt applied to any potential legacy, a Babe Ruth quote, no less.
"Heroes get remembered but legends never die," he recited. "I feel like we've done a lot of cool things in the four years I've already been here.
"A lot of guys, not just us obviously, have contributed to putting this program on a national scale. And I want to keep it going in the right direction."
In retrospect, Koenig and Showalter each got the most out of their senior year in high school.
Both won state championships.
"What more could I ask for?" posed Koenig, whose La Crosse Aquinas team also won it all during his sophomore year. "I was injured my junior year or we could have gone back-to-back-to-back."
Germantown's title was the first of three straight.
"We had gotten close a couple of times," Zak Showalter said. "We made it to the semifinals and just couldn't pull it out in the end. But we had a group of guys who really wanted to be champions."
Neither Brown nor Hayes achieved everything they wanted to as prep seniors.
"I averaged the most points, rebounds and blocks I had in my career and I definitely became a better player," Brown said of his individual accomplishments. "It prepared me for coming here. But in terms of where we finished in the (state) tournament, I wasn't really satisfied. At the same time, I didn't expect too much, I didn't expect to make it all the way."
That would be in contrast, of course, to what he's feeling now.
Hayes recalled missing a 3-point shot from the right corner in his final game at Whitmer High School and admitted, "It actually haunted me for a while."
In this context, he confided, "No, it didn't end the way I wanted it to. But here we are again — four years later — with another chance to leave another institution and another program …"
On a winning note.
Hayes has another chance to leave his mark, too. As do Brown, Showalter and Koenig. But the four seniors have not gotten together formally and discussed their aspirations or goals for this season.
"It's kind of like an unspoken thing," Koenig said. "And it has been the past few years. As seniors, we know what we're capable of. "We don't have to come together and say, 'We want to do this' or 'We want to do that.' We kind of do it every single day."
Added Showalter, "We're all-inclusive, the whole team, not just us seniors. If we're going to have a meeting, we're going to do it with everyone."
That's how Hayes treated it when he got up and spoke to the full group.
"I talked to the guys in the film room before we had our first official practice," he said. "I shared some thoughts, some things that I wanted to put on the table.
"I wanted them to understand the importance of the moment in front of us and to be able to try and seize that moment.
"We kind of all shared the sentiments on what we have in front of us and what we could do if we all put in our time, energy and belief in one another for these next couple of months."
Emphasized Brown, "We're already in solidarity with each other. We're all leaders in our own way, all on the same page. Our team bond is big. As a full team, we're inseparable at this point."
A year ago, Jordan Smith was the only senior on the roster. He played a total of nine minutes.
"We were forced, whether we liked it or not, to kind of behave as seniors even though we were only juniors," said Brown, speaking for Hayes, Koenig and Showalter.
"That gives us an advantage going into this year because last year was kind of about feeling it out — not only about finding ourselves, but seeing what it meant to be a leader.
"I know Bronson and I gained leaps and bounds last year in terms of being more vocal and trying to behave the right way on a daily basis.
"Now, going into this year, with extended practice time in the summer, we know what is expected of us and what we expect of each other."
Coping with the unexpected was also now a part of their resume as juniors. Last December, they had to deal with the abrupt retirement of head coach Bo Ryan and the promotion of Greg Gard.
"All the adversity last year with the coaching change," Koenig said, "and with losing a lot more than anyone ever imagined us losing, helped us grow a lot. A lot of guys matured, myself included."
Gard is now counting on tapping into the resolve of his seniors.
"They've seen the good, they've seen the bad, they've seen a lot of the in-between," Gard said. "You take all of their experiences: two Final Fours and 9-9 (overall) and 1-4 (Big Ten start to last season).
"There's always a reference point. Remember when? You can refer to a point in time and they understand completely. They understand the hows and whys of it.
"And they've been great with the younger guys. They've been able to lay the ground work and do a lot of the teaching before we even stepped on the floor for preseason practices. That's huge."
It starts anew Friday — one last time collegiately — for Hayes, Koenig, Brown and Showalter.
"They're all different, they all have their own drummer," Gard said of their diverse personalities. "But they understand well enough how important it is to have everybody on the same page."
Gard had a senior moment, too.
It was from the perspective of envisioning what he wants out of his seniors.
"With all of them," he said. "You just want them to play to their potential and not leave anything on the table after they're done … play up to your potential every day.
"The one thing I've tried to emphasize is that there are no off-days. We have to continue to push every day. It can't just be when we line up against a marquee opponent.
"It has to be every day in practice, everyone pushing each other."
Success is dependent on it. So are legacies.
