BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — Sam Dekker sat on his apartment sofa in Houston on Sunday night and did the hardest thing he's had to do in years.
He watched the Wisconsin men's basketball team play in a high-stakes NCAA tournament game and did so heavily stressed, powerless to help.
"At one point I'm texting my brother and actually my hand was shaking watching the TV," Dekker said.
This was during the second-round East Region nail-biter with second-seeded Xavier, a duel won by the seventh-seeded Badgers 66-63 when junior guard Bronson Koenig buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
The decision moved Wisconsin (22-12 overall) into the regional semifinals opposite Notre Dame (23-11) on Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Dekker spent the previous three seasons as part of the UW entourage. He was a highly regarded 6-foot-9 forward whose elite skills made him a first-round NBA draft pick of the Rockets last summer.
Dekker could be helping UW this season — he turned pro after his junior year — but he's never looked back even though his rookie campaign was derailed by back surgery and even though he'd be spared the angst of being a helpless spectator during March Madness.
During a recent conversation with a follower on Twitter, Dekker said someone marveled at his ability to deal with the stress associated with playing in the NBA. He said it's not the same thing as watching the NCAA tournament.
"Someone tweeted at me, 'This is terrible. I don't know how you do this every night,'" he said.
"In the NBA each game is very, very important, but there's 82 of them over the course of the season. If you lose you have to put it behind you, wake up and go after the next one.
"But watching a single-elimination tournament as a fan instead of playing in it is the hardest thing to do. I haven't been in this spot for a long time — since high school — so I was sitting there."
Dekker, a standout at Sheboygan Lutheran High School before coming to Madison, told another social media questioner that watching a game and playing in it are vastly different experiences.
"You don't feel the nerves on the court when you're in your zone. You don't feel that," he said.
"But sitting on the couch I could not get comfortable. I was eager. I was trying to make stuff happen through the TV."
Dekker played major minutes for the Badgers during their runs to the Final Four in 2014 and '15.
He twice led UW in rebounds (American, Oregon) and accounted for a team-best 15 points in a 74-73 loss to Kentucky in the Final Four semifinals as a sophomore.
Dekker's presence was even more memorable last spring when the Badgers reached the national title game.
In the West Regional final against Arizona, he had a career-best 27 points, including five second-half 3-pointers during an 85-78 victory. One of those triples came with 17.9 seconds left and clinched the win.
In the national semifinals against unbeaten Kentucky, Dekker had six points in a pivotal 8-0 run, including a step-back 3-pointer that gave UW the lead for good on the way to a 71-64 landmark triumph.
What's that feeling like? A year later the memories for Dekker seem fresh.
"It's gratifying. I think that's the word for it," he said. "Because you know how much work you put in and how hard it is to get to that point. So when you come through for your guys and for yourself, it's pretty rewarding.
"At the same time, if you have that drive in you, it's something that isn't surprising. You do it and you're like, 'That was supposed to happen.'"
Is there a better feeling?
"As an athlete? No. As a basketball player? No," Dekker said. "Hitting the game winner or a clutch shot with a guy on you, there's nothing like that. That's kind of what you live for."
Dekker said he and his peers are defined by their willingness to embrace the big moments.
"Not all athletes have it," he said. "What it boils down to is I actually want to be in those situations. It doesn't have to be in a game. It can be practice in a competition against a teammate.
"Bronson, for example, definitely has that. He loves that big shot. He loves that moment.
"Some guys step away and some guys step up. He's definitely one of those guys that steps up. I feel I am, too."
Dekker, whose rookie season in the pros has included time in the NBA Development League with Rio Grande Valley, said his most memorable perk for last year's heroics came from former UW coach Bo Ryan.
"I think everyone knows that me and Coach Ryan … had a different relationship," Dekker said. "We love each other. We respect each other. But we were also hard on each other.
"Him giving me a hug after those big games, you know, that was really rewarding. It felt like, 'Oh, he's proud of me.' Pretty cool."
Ryan's startling resignation on Dec. 15 was one of the many moments of adversity faced by the current Badgers. Associate head coach Greg Gard took over from there and engineered one of the best feel-good stories in the nation.
At one point Wisconsin was 9-9 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten Conference. But it won 13 of its next 16 games, finished tied for third in league play and secured the program's 18th-straight national tournament bid.
Dekker had a ready answer to the question that so many are asking about the Badgers:
Can they really make it to the NCAA Final Four for the third consecutive April?
"It wouldn't surprise me," he said. "I've seen it. I've seen stuff like this."
Dekker keeps close tabs on all his former teammates — especially veterans like Koenig, junior forward Vitto Brown, junior forward Nigel Hayes, junior guard Zak Showalter and senior guard Jordan Smith — and is convinced that the lessons from the last two Final Fours will pay dividends.
"Those guys have the poise that I've seen before and been a part of," Dekker said. "Guys like Show, Nigel, Bronson, Vitto, Jordan Smith — all those guys — they've been in this situation before. They've been around it. Our coaching staff, our training staff, they know the program and they're not going to change.
"There's never going to be a time when they go into the arena unprepared or scared. They're going to be ready to do their thing. I definitely had that feeling (of confidence) and see that in them."
Dekker said UW continues to evolve as an elite program and another step could be taken in the coming weeks.
"I think us kind of breaking through two years ago and getting to the Final Four kind of was like, 'Oh, we can do this,'" he said. "Doing it again last year, it was like, 'Oh, we expected this.'
"Now this year, now that they've won a few games here (in the NCAA tournament), it's like they all have that feeling again like we've been here before, so why not?"
All we have to do is embrace the drama and stress.
