It is the stuff of ancient dime-store novels, where every hero is fresh-faced and self-effacing. It is out of an earlier age, where the steak counted more than the sizzle and teamwork was still more than a quaint notion. It is also the regular-season champion of the Big Ten.
There is nothing sexy about Wisconsin, and little about its play is fit for a highlight film. But Saturday at a Welsh-Ryan Arena primarily filled with their fans, the Badgers grabbed their surprising title with a 65-52 victory over Northwestern that so reflected their nature.
They got double-figure contributions from Brian Butch (20 points), Jason Bohannon (15) and Marcus Landry (12). They got a typically passionate performance from Joe Krabbenhoft, who finished with nine points, six rebounds, four assists and a steal. They got 38 rebounds to the Wildcats’ 21 and, always, they got into the Wildcats’ faces as well.
In October, less than two weeks before this season, coach Bo Ryan admitted aloud he still was “trying to find the personality of our team. … We’re searching.”
Saturday he was asked what identity his team had found.
“Defensively is where we found out,” he said. “On the defensive end, they were willing to make that commitment. … Some teams you can work with and show, but they don’t quite catch on to the point where it’s good enough to cut a net down. But this group, defensively, gave itself a chance.”
They gave themselves that chance by entering Saturday’s affair with the nation’s top scoring defense at 54.4 ppg. But that is not the only reason they won the title most expected to go either to Indiana or Michigan State.
The other is reflected in these statistics. This season they have had five players score at least 20 points and seven lead them in scoring. In this era that so glorifies super-sizing and the superstar, that kind of egalitarianism is a throwback, a reason Spartans coach Tom Izzo and former Hoosiers coach Kelvin Sampson said this Badgers team was better than the one that last season ascended to No. 1 in the rankings.
That version was built on the outsized talents of Alando Tucker, who had Kammron Taylor as a trusted sidekick. These Badgers (26-4, 16-2) have no star, don’t even have a performer certain to be named first team all-conference. Yet so many of them, in different ways, can slice an opponent here, gash an opponent there, inflict an opponent with so many wounds that life slowly seeps away.
That is what happened to the Wildcats (8-21, 1-17), who hung around for the first 18 minutes. But then, in the last two of the first half and the first six of the second, the Badgers took a three-point lead up to 11 with six players scoring.
“For him to close out this way is very appropriate,” Ryan said of Butch, the fifth-year senior who also had 14 rebounds.
Minutes later, Butch was asked about that and nodded as he listened to his coach’s comment. Then, unabashedly, significantly, he echoed those heroes of the past.
“The main thing he’s trying to get at there is all I care about is winning and all the team cares about is winning,” he said. “It’s nice to put up numbers, yeah. But when it comes down to it, it’s having a title, having a championship to look back on.”
Then they all can bask in the glory.
“This team really wants to see everybody get their shot, get their limelight, whatever,” Krabbenhoft said. “This is quite the team.”
———-
smyslenski@tribune.com
