BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — After the two-hour practice, Ethan Happ didn't leave the floor with the rest of his Wisconsin teammates. Instead the redshirt sophomore center picked up a Sterling basketball and went through a shooting circuit for 30 minutes with a manager rebounding and keeping track of the makes.
"It's basically form shots and swing spots, 2s and 3s, 80 made; 40 post moves, 10 free throws, five in a row, something like that," explained Happ, who went through this specific routine two days before the Badgers entertained Indiana during a Super Bowl Sunday matinee at the Kohl Center.
During the practice itself, when the starters were on defense and matched against the scout team, Happ would stand under the basket and hoist shots with his left and right hand on either side of the rim during stoppages. He wasn't merely amusing himself, either. There was a method to it all.
"I don't want to make too big of a deal out of it," Happ pleaded. "But I think the more you have the ball in your hands and you're putting yourself in awkward positions under the hoop like that, even if you're just kind of fooling around during practice, it helps."
It's all about building muscle memory. "The more repetitions — reverses with your left hand or awkward spins with your right hand — it's going to help," he reiterated.
The Hoosiers tried to control Happ by rotating three different low-post defenders: 6-foot-10 Thomas Bryant, 6-10 De'Ron Davis and 6-7 Juwan Morgan. They all took their turns with little success. Happ still made 8-of-10 shots and scored 20 points in Wisconsin's 65-60 win at the Kohl Center.
"He's crafty," said CBS analyst Clark Kellogg, who was courtside for Sunday's game. "There's a knack for finishing inside. It's a combination of skills. It's hands. It's footwork. It's strength. But it's also knowing where you are (in relationship to the ball), where the basket is and where the defender is.
"A lot of times guys don't handle all three of those. Sometimes guys will know where the defender is, know where the ball is and they forget where the basket is. He does all three. He knows where his defender is. He feels him. He finds him. And he knows where the hoop is."
Then it becomes a matter of finishing.
"And," Kellogg said of Happ, "he has got the ability with both hands to finish."
The 6-8, 225-pound Kellogg knows his way around the rim. During his three seasons at Ohio State — 86 career games — he averaged a double-double (15 points, 10 rebounds). In 1982, he was the Most Valuable Player in the Big Ten. That same year, he was a No. 1 draft pick of the Indiana Pacers.
When asked about Happ's ball-handling skills, especially since they're outside the norm for someone 6-10, Kellogg noted, "Part of that is how he developed as a player. He was a point guard until he was about a sophomore in high school and then he had a pretty significant growth spurt.
"So, those instincts that you have as a ball handler, even though you're a little taller, they don't go away. They might go dormant as you adjust to a new position. But they don't go away. Those have resurfaced with his ability to score. And he has been better finishing inside more so than he was."
Kellogg agreed that Happ has begun to slow down the process with his back to the basket.
"That would be one way to look at it — that you realize you've got a little more time," he said. "It's maturity; not being so emotionally tied to the ball going in and still knowing you can produce even though you might go through a period where you might miss some shots. Continue to stay the course."
Is Happ in the discussion for Player of the Year in the Big Ten?
"Oh, no question, no question," Kellogg said. "It's going to be hard to overcome Purdue's Caleb Swanigan who has got 20 double-doubles. That kind of individual consistency and brilliance, to me, is what the Player of the Year is about. But Happ is right there with Maryland's Melo Trimble."
On Monday morning, ESPN's Jay Bilas, one of the most accomplished and respected analysts in college basketball, hit send on this tweet: "Wisconsin's Ethan Happ is the best defender I've seen all season. To this point, he's the leader for National Defensive Player of the Year."
The testimonials from Kellogg and Bilas are heady stuff for Happ who found himself on another list last week, a list of 10 finalists for the 2017 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year award. As a UW senior, Frank Kaminsky won it in 2015 on his way to being the consensus National Player of the Year.
Happ has seen old videos of Abdul-Jabbar.
"He had the goggles, right?" inquired Happ, who related how his dad through a friend of a friend wound up with some sweat pants that once belonged to Kareem. But he went on to say that they were stored in the basement and the mice got to them. "We have them. They just have holes in them."
Right now, there aren't many holes in Happ's game save from the free throw line. Overall, he's shooting 50 percent (51-of-101), down from last season's mark of 64 percent. Repetitions are part of the equation for success at the stripe, according to Kellogg who shot 77 percent from the line at Ohio State.
"You have to get to the point of trusting your mechanics," said Kellogg, who had a limited NBA career because of chronic knee problems. "I always say if you take good shots, you have good mechanics and you're on balance, the percentages are going to be with you. It's the same at the foul line."
Even with his wide frame of reference as one of the voices/faces of March Madness on CBS, the 55-year-old Kellogg was hard-pressed to come up with someone who has a similar playing style to Happ. "There's no one that jumps to mind with that consistent relentlessness," he conceded.
• • • •
Joakim Noah.
That name was dropped by Wisconsin basketball strength and conditioning coach Erik Helland, a 25-year veteran of the NBA and Chicago Bulls. "I think Ethan plays at a very similar pace to Joakim," he said. "Honestly, he has a difficult time playing at a slow pace. He's always active. Just like Joakim."
Because of that activity, the non-stop motor, to be cliché, Helland said, "That's a huge reason why Ethan is effective. He typically outworks people. They'll take a little break and, all of a sudden, he's by you … he goes and he's going at a different speed than everybody else."
The 6-11, 230-pound Noah played on back-to-back national championship teams at Florida before going in the first round (No. 9) of the 2007 draft to the Bulls. A two-time all-star, Noah was selected as the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2014. Noah, 34, is now with the New York Knicks.
"They're similar in stature and in terms of how they play, their style of play, their versatility," Helland said. "Ethan is a terrific passer and he handles the ball well, a lot like Joakim did. When he was Ethan's age, he didn't have a reliable jump shot, either. But he developed it over the years.
"I think Ethan will probably develop one over those same lines. Sooner or later, whether it's pretty or not, he's going to be a threat and he'll be able to make a 15-foot jumper when he's open."
During practices, there will be competitions among the UW players whereby the losers must run a series of sprints from boundary to boundary. Maybe it's the starters or rotation. Maybe it's the scout team. Maybe it's individuals for turning over the ball or missing free throws. Happ runs … win or lose.
"He does it all the time," Helland said. "I don't think he ever misses."
"I think his reasoning is two-fold," head coach Greg Gard explained. "Number one, he loves the conditioning and prides himself on being in great shape. But the more telling tale is that he wants to be there for his teammates that have to run. He wants to show that he is no better than anyone. It's a team-bonding thing in his mind."
Happ again prefaced his explanation saying, "I don't really want to make a big deal out of that." But he added, "If I saw a teammate do that, running every time, I would think, 'He's with us no matter what, high or low. He's a guy that you can lean on. He's down with us.'"
Happ doesn't seem to slow down, though. The frenetic pace is part of his makeup.
"If anybody were to come into our practice, you'd see that he practices at that pace as well," Helland said. "That's important because it's not something you can flip a switch at game time and go, 'I'm going to play hard.' You train yourself so when you go into a game it's just normal speed."
Helland brought up Noah again.
"It's more how their brains work," he said. "They're always active, they're always moving."
Happ is just scratching the surface, too, Helland suggested, on some of his physical gifts.
"He's deceptively strong," Helland said. "And this is something I'm trying to get across to Ethan, he's also deceptively athletic in a vertical sense. He's not using a lot of it right now. As you see him develop, I'd like to see him have the ability to finish over the top of people.
"He's already got terrific feet. He's quick … and he's willing to expend energy, which is a big deal. He gets into people's motors. I would almost equate him to a wrestler in that he tries to push that conditioning envelope on people and there comes a point where they can't keep up."
While there may be varying opinions on whether there is a true match for Happ in terms of his unique playing style — especially since 230 of his 234 field goal attempts have been initiated around the rim — he has struck a POY chord with television analysts and opposing coaches in the Big Ten.
"He's a terrific player," Illinois head coach John Groce said last week in Champaign. "He's continued to get better every year. Very, very physical. Finishes with either hand … In our league, I can tell you everyone respects the heck out of him."
The ultimate endorsement for a competitor.
