UWBadgers.com Senior Writer Mike Lucas is celebrating 50 years of covering the Badgers. Join us throughout the season as we take a look back at some of the most memorable moments from his career in Madison in addition to special moments from the 1999-2000 season, an unheralded dream season for the Badgers.
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
On Sunday, Wisconsin's 2000 Final Four team will be honored during a 20th anniversary celebration at the Kohl Center. Venerable head coach Dick Bennett and returning players will be recognized prior to the tip-off against Ohio State and at halftime. The Badgers will wear special throwback uniforms and fans will be asked to stand until the Buckeyes score to revive an old tradition popularized by this UW team that dared to dream the dream — Bennett's dream — and then lived it. Read Part 1 of this series here.
MADISON, Wis. — During his introductory press conference, Dick Bennett used such words as "scary" and "exciting" to describe the "challenge of a lifetime" in accepting the Wisconsin job.
"But I have a plan," the 51-year-old Bennett assured his UW Field House audience on March 31, 1995. "I even have a picture in my mind of how we have to do it."
This was Bennett's dream job. And he encouraged others to share it. Standing in front of his players, he said, "Fellows, I want to tell you about a dream. We're going to start the dream today."
That was the theme for Year One. From there, it evolved from "Start the Dream" to "Reach for the Dream" to "Touch the Dream" which was the theme for Year Five.
That, too, evolved during the 2000 NCAA basketball tournament. Before the Badgers faced Purdue in the West Regional final, Bennett got very emotional in the locker room.
"I think all of a sudden he realized that we've got a chance to go to the Final Four," said Brad Soderberg, the longest tenured Bennett assistant. "It's what he has dreamt about all along."
After the Badgers executed the game plan to near perfection in a hard-fought 64-60 win over the Boilermakers, Bennett stood in front of his players and delivered another message.
"I never thought I was going to be able to say this to a team," he said, choking up. "But now you can live the dream — and the dream is a trip to the Final Four."
• • • •
Two decades later, Mike Kelley admitted, "It's still one of the things that blows my mind."
Let him explain.
"On our recruiting visit, Coach Bennett sold us on this idea of the dream," said Kelley, the industrious, lockdown point guard. "Everything was about the dream.
"What I explain to people is that the dream was not winning the national championship. The dream was getting to the Final Four and that's what we did.
"I always thought it was interesting, 'Why is the goal the Final Four? But he (Bennett) had been a coach for so long, he understood the significance of that and what came with it.
"He would always say, 'Once you get there, anyone can win two games. But you've got to get there first.' They put it out in front of us (as recruits) and they never stopped talking about it."
Kelley was a member of Bennett's first full recruiting class — his first class of dreamers — which included Andy Kowske, Maurice Linton, Mark Vershaw and Charlie Wills.
During that memorable 1999-2000 season, Vershaw started 30 of 36 games and led the Badgers in scoring with a modest 11.8 points per game average. Nobody else finished in double-digits.
(Wisconsin was the first team in NCAA history to reach the Final Four without a single player being recognized on the all-conference teams. No one even garnered honorable mention.)
Vershaw also led the Badgers in playing time (31.2 minutes) while nine players averaged between 10 and 29 minutes and between two and nine points. Such was the balance.
From Vershaw to Kowske (9.2 points, 6.2 rebounds) to Jon Bryant (8.2 points, 74 triples) to Roy Boone (6.1 points) to Duany Duany (5.2 points) to Kelley (5.0 points, 114 assists, 95 steals) …
From Maurice Linton (4.5 points) to Wills (3.7 points) to Kirk Penney (3.7 points) to Travon Davis (2.1 points) to Julian Swartz, Erik Faust and Robert Smith …
They shared Bennett's dream.
"One of the things I personally cherish is the way that team came together for the last big portion of the season," Bennett said. "I remember the conference being very strong that year.
"We were kind of in the middle (8-8). But we became a legitimate high-level team down the stretch with emergence of certain guys and the acceptance of roles, which sometimes takes time."
After a January 19 loss to Penn State, the dream never seemed more improbable. The Badgers were 9-8 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten. Even the NIT appeared to be a distant dream.
Although they won three of their next five games, they were completely dismantled by Michigan State, 61-44, in mid-February.
A win over Michigan was followed by another loss to the Spartans saddling Wisconsin with an uncomfortable 13-12 record, 5-8 in the conference. And it would get worse before it would get better.
On February 24, the Badgers played their worst half of the season at Iowa. They were guilty of 10 turnovers and made just 6 of 24 shots (0-of-14 from the 3-point line).
They were lucky to be trailing by only nine points, 26-17.
"Going down the tunnel at halftime, I was really worried," Soderberg said. "I was thinking we could start reeling in a bad way if we couldn't turn it around.
"I was afraid the NIT wasn't even going to be a possibility."
In the second half, the Badgers were a different team. They made 11 of 15 shots and scored on 19 of their final 21 possessions in rallying for a 54-45 win over the stunned Hawkeyes.
"Coach Bennett erupted," Davis said, "and we erupted with him."
Bennett's passionate halftime speech was the second of two eruptions. The first came with 7:52 left in the first half when Bennett was assessed a technical foul.
An enraged Bennett charged on to the court and bumped official J.D. Collins after Kelley was whistled for a charging foul. Bennett needed to be restrained by his players and assistants.
Iowa's first-year head coach Steve Alford saw a method to the madness. Lamented Alford, "We didn't get to the free throw line much after that. Coach Bennett gave me a pretty good lesson tonight."
In the first half, the Badgers shot five free throws, the Hawkeyes shot six. In the second half, the Badgers shot 16 and the Hawks just two. The final tally was 21 free throws to 8; 16 makes to 5.
"It was not intentional — the technical or the bump," Bennett said. "I remember Cheryl Marra was waiting for me when we got back to Madison to make sure I didn't do that on purpose."
Marra was a UW associate athletic director in charge of men's basketball.
"I recall Coach Soderberg yelling at all of us, 'Until you guys care about it as much as he does, we're never going to be any good,"' Kelley said. "It just lit a fire under us.
"You knew what we were as a team. We had no superstars. We were just guys who had roles. We all thought we had accepted our roles before that (game at Iowa).
"But sometimes when you're in the cauldron you learn a lot about yourself … you could probably crack and fold or you can galvanize and come together and that's what we did there."
The Badgers went on to win eight of their next nine games to reach the Final Four.
"It told me that our team was together," Bennett said of that comeback in Iowa City. "There was just such a strong will that our team demonstrated in that game to pull that one out.
"I do remember from that point on, not only did we become better as a unit defensively, but certain guys were more willing to see that our shooters were able to get shots and we moved the ball.
"We just seemed to rise to a level that we had not been at before."
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Echoing the sentiments, Kelley said, "Maybe we didn't realize the potential that we had in ourselves. Maybe that was part of what the magic at Iowa was.
"We never approached it as, 'We are this good.' It was more a sense of needing to prove ourselves and we needed to avoid a letdown. We played more out of a fear of failure than anything."
During the stretch drive, Bennett broke out his "Casey at the Bat" routine whereby he would regale his players by reciting the fabled baseball poem authored in 1888 by Earnest Thayer.
"It was like being in an English class and he was the teacher," Kelley said. "That was his element. He enjoyed doing Casey at the Bat as much as he enjoyed breaking down a defense for us.
"He was putting on a performance like he was on stage. And it brought us together for sure. He's really a dramatic, motivational guy. There are more facets to him than people know."
More than the grimaces on his face during games, whether the Badgers were winning or losing.
Reflecting on the season and Final Four run, Bennett confided, "I often say, 'I wish that I could have enjoyed it even more.'
"The thrill was being able to participate with that whole atmosphere … and the excitement that seemed to be generated by that experience, particularly with the university and around the state.
"Right now, it's such a pleasant, positive memory to see how everyone celebrated that event."
Bennett and his players and Badger fans will relive the dream Sunday. The sun will be shining bright, the band will be playing and there will be joy in the Kohl Center, if not Mudville.
