Take Five: Five viewpoints in five days, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Badgers' historic 2015 NCAA Tournament
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — There was a moment of reflection while Sam Dekker was waiting for his flight to New York City to take off from the runway in Istanbul, Turkey. Maybe he was thinking about how fortunate his timing was to that point in getting home to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
The day before, the former UW basketball player got his wake-up call.
"I got a call that I had to get to the airport as soon as possible because Russia was about to close down its borders," said Dekker, who was playing for a pro team, Lokomotiv Kuban, in Krasnodar, a city in southern Russia, less than 100 miles from the Black Sea. "I packed up my apartment as quick as I could."
Dekker already had first-hand knowledge of the urgency created by the global pandemic.
"One or more players on the team we had just played tested positive (for COVID-19)," he said. "Our whole team had to be tested twice over two weeks. I did 14 days of self-quarantine and thankfully, day 15, the day I could leave my apartment, was the day I left the country."
Dekker flew from Krasnodar to Moscow to Istanbul, where he spent the night.
"I had a flight to New York the next day and they held our plane in Istanbul for two hours to notify any passengers that were going to the States on later flights that they had to get to the airport as soon as they could. Turkish Airlines really did a good thing in helping some people get home.
"It turns out that was the final flight internationally that Istanbul was going to be running for the foreseeable future. So, I literally got out on the last flight possible to New York. I was very lucky. And needless to say, I'm very glad to be back ... That was a crazy couple of days."
Dekker is now under self-quarantine in Sheboygan where he has hunkered down with his wife Olivia, a sideline reporter for ESPN and the Big Ten Network. "Obviously, this is much needed time for us to catch up after being apart for so long," he said. "We're really enjoying our time together now."
For the 25-year-old Dekker, who appeared in 200 NBA games for Houston, the LA Clippers, Cleveland and Washington before going to Russia, there will be another moment for reflection on Saturday, the fifth-year anniversary of Wisconsin's win over Kentucky in the 2015 Final Four.
"I've been on five different teams and had 11 or 12 different head coaches since that game," he said. "A lot has happened in my life. Five years? Makes me feel old. But it was a great memory and right now something for a lot of people to talk about due to having no March Madness."
Playing in back-to-back Final Fours had its advantages, Dekker suggested, not the least of which was familiarity. There was the familiarity with the Wildcats, who had beaten the Badgers the year before in the semifinals. And there was the familiarity with the staging of such a huge media event.
"That's something I think people overlook and that's how easy the second time around is," Dekker said. "Our first year in the Final Four at Dallas, it was more of a shock. We were trying to take it all in and do everything. We were trying to have fun on every stage and at every platform.
"We wanted to show everyone who we are."
Dekker paused.
"That takes a lot of out of you. It's a long week."
By contrast, when the Badgers showed up at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Dekker said, "The second time around we knew exactly what to expect. We knew not to wear ourselves out and just how to handle ourselves on a stage like that. We were much more cool and collected.
"It's a whole new ballgame when you have a week of prep and 80,000 people in the building and media tugging you from every direction. For college kids that's tough to do and you have to find ways to put your mind at ease and not get too excited or do too much."
Sam Dekker (15) and Frank Kaminsky (44)
There's also such a thing as momentum. And the Badgers had it after beating Arizona in the Elite Eight for a second consecutive year. Dekker had been in a shooting rhythm for the first three games of the tournament (20, 17 and 23 points) and was virtually unstoppable against the Wildcats.
The 6-foot-9 Dekker was a match-up nightmare in scoring a career-high 27 points at the Staples Center in Los Angeles (his future home with the Clippers during the 2017-18 season). In the second half alone, he didn't miss: 6-of-6 from the field, 5-of-5 from the 3-point arc, 3-of-3 from the free throw line.
"We were playing at a high level, myself included, coming out of L.A.," Dekker said. "I thought I got off to a good start in Omaha with those two games (against Costal Carolina and Oregon). My shot felt good. I was really confident in my abilities and it was the right time to do that."
Dekker was the Most Outstanding Player of the West Regional.
"Besides a tough offensive night for me in the Big Ten championship," said Dekker, who had just four points (2-of-7) in an overtime win over Michigan State at the United Center in Chicago, "the last two months of the season I thought my confidence was at an all-time high."
So was Kentucky's after winning 38 straight, an NCAA record to start the season. After losing 6-9 Julius Randle to the NBA, the Wildcats retooled with 7-foot Karl-Anthony Towns and 6-10 Trey Lyles in the frontcourt. Joining them were 7-foot Willie Cauley-Stein, 7-foot Dakari Johnson and 6-9 Marcus Lee.
The starting guards, Aaron and Andrew Harrison, were 6-6. As was Devin Booker.
"A lot of teams couldn't match-up with their size and athleticism," Dekker observed. "But our starting lineup was a big lineup. We had Bronson (Koenig) and Josh (Gasser) who are big guards. And me, Nigel (Hayes) and Frank (Kaminsky) with Duje (Dukan) and Vitto (Brown) coming off the bench.
"Size-wise, we were able to match-up. Kentucky may have had a little more quickness. But we didn't struggle with tempo. That was the first game that Kentucky wasn't wildly more athletic than the other team. When you mix that with our system that really played into our hand."
As it turned out, Dekker had a hand in three of the game's biggest plays.
One of them was a 3-pointer that pushed the Badgers into a 63-60 lead with 1:42 left.
"We called something where Frank could come and ball screen for me and that's something that had been working for us," he said afterwards. "Karl-Anthony (Towns) came off it and got on his heels a little. He thought I was going to drive and I was able to free up some space on a step-back.
"I was waiting for a good look like that all night.
"As soon as it was off my hand, I knew it was down."
Seventeen seconds later, Dekker drew a charge on Lyles.
"The biggest play that I can remember in my mind was Sam taking the charge," Kaminsky said this week from Phoenix, Arizona. "That was the biggest play of the game, no question. That was kind of the play that solidified it. It was like, 'We did it. We got this. It's ours now.'"
Dekker politely begged to differ.
"In the grand scheme of things, the whole sequence of the 3 and taking the charge were two of the biggest plays of my career for sure," said Dekker, who had 16 points, one of four in double-figures for the Badgers. "I don't want to be a guy who goes against what everyone remembers …
"But I think the biggest play for me in that game was when we had the scoring drought and I was matched up against Lyles and I finished over three guys. Just to see the lid coming off the hoop, you could see everyone thinking, 'Ok, we're back.' It gave me confidence to think, 'Let's take over here.'"
With 14:43 to play in the second half, the Badgers led by eight points (52-44). That's when they went into the aforementioned drought scoring just four points (on a Traevon Jackson layup and two free throws) over the next 10-plus minutes during which Kentucky took a 60-56 lead at the 6:36 mark.
Dekker's drive and finish at the rim came with 4:26 remaining and made it, 60-58. That was followed by a disputed score: Hayes' put-back that came after the shot clock expired. But it was not overruled. Dekker then gave the Badgers the lead for good with his cold-blooded triple.
The next thing Dekker remembered was the mosh pit of fans in the Omni Hotel lobby.
"We appreciated the Omni staff for allowing all those crazy Badger fans to pack the place and stay up a little after hours," Dekker said. "Since Day One, our parents have been at our side and they let them have that front lane (into the hotel) for us to walk by and give them each a hug and kiss.
"It was not only our own parents, but everyone's parents. Josh's parents. Frank's parents. Nigel's parents. Our team was so close that the families became an extended family. Just seeing the joy of everybody and how proud they were of us are memories that we're always going to have."
There was one other memory. The loss to Duke in the national championship game.
"That's a tough one to get over and I don't know that we ever will," Dekker said. "The Kentucky loss in 2014 and the Duke loss in 2015 are going to be ones that sting for a long time — just to be so close. I truly thought both years that we could have won the national title."
Dekker credited the Blue Devils for making the clutch plays down the stretch.
"And you could see it in our faces that feeling, 'There's no way this is supposed to happen because this is our chance, this is our year,"' he said wistfully.
Five years later, there's so much more to be proud of.
"We can say that we were the best team in Badger history with the best player in Badger history with Frank," Dekker said. "Our legacy will not be just for the stuff that we did on the court, but for what we did off the court; the laughs that we shared together and the camaraderie that we had."
Those are moments of reflection that Dekker will always cherish.
