Lucas: Perspective keeps Krabbenhoft, Badgers focused on what matters
December 26, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Mike Lucas
Micah Potter’s addition to team helps bring energy off the bench
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
"I split my legs to go forward and boom, I took off and it literally went (slapped his hands twice) — it was that loud (slapped his hands twice more)," Krabbenhoft said. "That loud. I knew right away."
It felt like somebody had kicked him and he knew that it was his Achilles tendon. He fell to the floor, grabbed his ankle, cursed, stood up, tried to walk, cursed, fell, took off his shoe and winged it.
"Immediately, I was like, 'My poor wife,'" he said. "She's got her hands filled to begin with."
Joe and Sara Krabbenhoft have four small children, two boys, two girls, ages 7, 5, 3, and 2. As a self-sufficient coach's wife, she has adapted to her husband's schedule; the late hours, the travel.
"As a coach, I'm not there often," he reasoned, which is why when he was writhing in pain on the court after blowing his Achilles, he was thinking "100 percent" about his family and not himself.
"I didn't feel sorry for myself," he reiterated. "This is not that big of a deal, I'm fine."
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While the 32-year-old Krabbenhoft was sitting in the Kohl Center training room with fellow assistant coach Alando Tucker, it all came to a head.
"It was right after I did it and I was mad," he said, admitting that all sorts of things crossed his mind, mostly evoking self-pity. "Poor me. This bleeps. What am I going to do now?"
Tucker turned to him and said, "Hey, you're all right. Relax."
"I just looked at him," Krabbenhoft recounted, "and said, 'You're right.'"
Perspective is Tucker offering those reassuring words, not Howard Moore, who is on medical leave from the program.
Perspective is the Moore family tragedy that still dwarfs everything else.
Perspective is any personal inconvenience, like a blown tendon, that is so minor and not that big of a deal in contrast to "what we've gone through as a staff" in Krabbenhoft's own sincere words.
During Saturday's pregame warmups, Milwaukee's players honored Moore and his family by wearing black T-shirts with "MKE" on front and "Do Moore, Be Moore, 4 Moore" on the back.
(Panthers head coach Pat Baldwin and Moore built a friendship when they were assistant coaches on Jim Whitesell's staff at Chicago Loyola during the 2004-05 season.)
Wisconsin's Greg Gard called the shirts "a first-class gesture on Pat and his program's part."
The Badgers then went out and shot 50 percent from the field and defeated Milwaukee, 83-64, behind D'Mitrik Trice's career-high 31 points. Nate Reuvers also matched his career high with 22 points, adding 5 rebounds and 3 blocks.
Micah Potter, the Ohio State transfer, made his playing debut as a Badger and accounted for 12 points (6-of-6 from the free throw line) and five rebounds in a little over 12 minutes.
Cheering them all on from the bench was Krabbenhoft who used a medical scooter to get from the locker room to his customary seat on the Wisconsin sideline.
Pushing with his left leg, he rested his right leg and casted ankle on the scooter's knee pad (His kids haven't accessorized the handlebars with a horn or basket. "But they like riding it around," he said.).
Once the game started, Krabbenhoft insisted that he wasn't concerned about someone chasing a loose ball on the boundary and crashing into him even if he was in a vulnerable, courtside position.
"(Assistant) Dean Oliver has been lifting (weights) and he said that he'd protect me," Krabbenhoft joked. "Nobody wants to come diving in here or they'll get a forearm shiver from me."
He was laughing. But was he kidding? Feigning a shiver with his right arm, he smiled.
During practices, however, Krabbenhoft conceded, "I've got to position myself in a place where guys aren't going to be flying at me because I can't get out of the way."
Since the beginning of the season, Krabbenhoft and Tucker have been fiery, competitive fixtures on the scout team that practices daily against the starting five and rotation.
Krabbenhoft is done and Tucker may be. He's got a foot injury. While ineligible, Potter practiced with the scouts along with redshirt freshman Joe Hedstrom, who recently underwent season-ending knee surgery.
That pretty much decimates the scout team. Gard, of course, will have to make do. So will Krabbenhoft, who has crutches to get up and down stairs when he isn't pushing his scooter around.
"They think the scooter is cool," he said of his two older boys, Joe and Tristan. "It's a good lesson for them, too. Injuries in sports happen. They're young and they're not going to get hurt yet.
"But eventually they will go through something if they choose to play sports."
Krabbenhoft has been through plenty. At Roosevelt High School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he twice had foot surgery on a fractured fifth metatarsal. When he got to Wisconsin, he had another.
"I've coached seven years now (as an assistant) and I've had three major surgeries," he said. "I ripped my thumb apart and they reconstructed it. I had a torn meniscus (knee) and now my Achilles."
Gard rotates the scouting reports among his three assistants. It just so happened that Krabbenhoft got hurt the week that he had the Rutgers scout. Obviously, he didn't go to New Jersey.
But it may have been more painful to stay at home and watch, especially the way the Badgers lost. Since then, he has noticed an uptick around the players as far as proving they are better than that.
"Coach (Gard) did a great job having some practices where we can reinforce some things and work on some of the little things," Krabbenhoft said, "continue to hammer home the core principles and foundations of what makes this specific group successful.
"Every group that has been through here ticks to a different clock. This group has found a rhythm, they've found some things that they're comfortable with and they've accepted responsibilities on some things, and they understand that they have to improve in those areas.
"That's all you can ask — that they continue to buy in and be coachable."
Prior to last Saturday's tipoff against Milwaukee, Krabbenhoft was asked what he might share with the 6-foot-10, 248-pound Potter who had to wait 21 months to resume his college basketball career. His last game action was in Ohio State's second-round loss to Gonzaga in the 2018 NCAA tournament.
"Have a ball, enjoy yourself, play hard," he said. "Just let the game come to you and don't try to make up for lost time in one possession. Easier said than done. I'm sure he will try. I would."
Potter was clocked well above the speed limit after entering the game to a warm reception from the Kohl Center crowd. Slowly but surely, he found his rhythm and contributed to Wisconsin's victory on both ends of the floor despite playing limited minutes.
On Potter's addition to the rotation, Krabbenhoft said, "It's going to help Nate tremendously. He needs an extra pair of hands down there to bang on bodies and help him out with the physicality of playing low-post defense and rebounding and protecting the rim and all those things.
"They will play together at times, too … Nate is a huge beneficiary."
Not only does Potter bring invaluable experience off the bench — he appeared in 59 games with 16 starts for the Buckeyes over two seasons — but he's an "energizer," not unlike true freshman Tyler Wahl who played 17 minutes Saturday and had five rebounds and three assists.
"Tyler doesn't swing a big enough hammer yet physically and at times that gets exposed," said Krabbenhoft. "But I love his fight, I love his energy. When you get the ball and you're driving, you've got to tone it back a little. But I'd rather have him do that than have to encourage a guy to get into the fight.
"You don't have to worry about that with Tyler."
There were a couple of possessions against Milwaukee where Trevor Anderson broke down the defense and fed Potter for rim-rattling dunks, a developing chemistry that bears watching.
"The biggest thing with Trevor is that he makes people better," Krabbenhoft said. "He's not 100 percent (one year removed from knee surgery). He's not Trevor Anderson of old. He can't do the things that he used to be able to do.
"But the four other guys on the floor play better — their game is elevated — because of what he brings. That's a valuable piece. He also understands the ebb and flow of pain and how that knee responds with more minutes and more practice load at times.
"He's got to continue to deal with that mentally, and it's not easy."
Krabbenhoft could teach a course in pain management, 101. As far as a timeline when he'll be free of the scooter and crutches, he said, "By the time the golf courses open, whenever that is. My competitive juices will go 100 percent into golf from now on."
