Former Wisconsin basketball star Sam Dekker recently dropped an interesting nugget about the Badgers making the Final Four in back-to-back years.
The Badgers made the Final Four in 2014 and 2015, and one of the things often talked about was how Bo Ryan adapted the offense for his more athletic than usual roster. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
Yet, Dekker refutes the belief they ran a super organized offense. He recently tweeted, “truth be told, we didn’t run ANYTHING. just 5 guys that knew how to play off each other and cut a lot. This is all improv here.”
He further added that Michigan State coach Tom Izzo once told him the Badgers were “impossible” to scout because of the way the offense was improvised.
since it’s still March madness I wanted to share something. our ‘14 and ‘15 years everyone talked about how well we ran “our offense”. truth be told, we didn’t run ANYTHING. just 5 guys that knew how to play off each other and cut a lot. This is all improv here. pic.twitter.com/NGgIxti1ld
— Sam Dekker (@dekker) March 28, 2020
Ran into Coach Izzo last year and he told me we were impossible to scout because we didn’t have any plays to prep for haha. Just thought some people would find it interesting.
— Sam Dekker (@dekker) March 28, 2020
lmao in one play we did a 5-4 pick-n-pop with frank and nige. A Bronson thru cut to open the paint. Josh hit my guy on a back screen and then a quick pin for Bronson to lift out the corner for a quick swing 3. Organized chaos can be very pretty.
— Sam Dekker (@dekker) March 28, 2020
Ben Brust joined in on the conversation, and backed up Dekker’s version of events that it was all random.
I saw a video breakdown on YouTube of the offense both years and it was like “watch them run the swing here” … We were just running around and cutting randomly lol
— Ben Brust (@BenBrust) March 28, 2020
I don’t know why, but I absolutely love this insight from Dekker for two reasons. First, it’s a testament to just how good the players on those back-to-back Final Four teams were.
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Kaminsky, Dekker, Hayes, Gasser and the rest of the squad were all so damn good. We had guys coming off the bench that would have started most other years for Wisconsin.
When you have that much natural talent running around on the court, it allows you to really open things up.
Secondly, the fact Bo Ryan was willing to unleash the offense is a sign of what kind of coach he was while leading the Badgers.
He was known for being a strict disciplinarian and running a very structured team. Most coaches like that don’t change.
The fact Bo Ryan did proves he was an incredibly talented leader.
As always, thanks for the memories. Those two years of Wisconsin basketball were absolutely incredible, and I’m glad I got to enjoy them in Madison.
