Badger Basketball nostalgia: 2000 Final Four team revisited

[hawing]

Although this is a college basketball topic, since it concerns the past it didn't seem a fit for the existing hoops thread.

 

At the UW/Northwestern game today, Wisconsin welcomed back some of the Badgers from the 2000 Final Four appearance. I would have liked to see this, but the State Journal helped make up for it with some retrospective coverage:

 

Celebrating a season to remember

 

Catching up with the Final Four team (from Mike Kelley to Dave Mader and everyone in between)

 

I've been fortunate to have some pretty good fan experiences in the time I've followed my sports of choice, but nothing (to date) has been as flat-out, absolutely crazy as observing that Final Four run. It was just so improbable.

 

I remember thinking, "oh, nice" when UW beat Fresno State, and I remember thinking that if they had to face a 1 seed in the second round, Arizona was probably the best of those teams for them to face. So when they beat Arizona I somehow wasn't that surprised. I didn't really start to think about what they were accomplishing until they also beat LSU - at which point I realized, geez, all they have to do is beat Purdue. I'd seen them beat Purdue that season and knew it could happen.

 

So the game with Purdue ended and the S.O. and I just sat in stunned silence for a moment. Then the guy who splits his season tickets with us called to celebrate, and while he and the S.O. talked I stepped outside the house (at the time we lived just south of Meriter Hospital). I heard happy screams and whoops from every direction, and I saw a helicopter hovering to our north, I guessed over Regent Street. Madison doesn't have traffic helicopters (and it was a Saturday anyway) so I figured it was stationed to watch fans celebrate.

 

The best time I've ever had in Camp Randall Stadium was welcoming the team back from Albuquerque at 12:30 that night. It was an all-ages crowd - lots of students, but also families with little kids and the red-sweater-crowd (the "old people," like in the chant, only everyone was standing the whole time). Most of the east side of the stadium (pre-luxury boxes) was filled by the time the team arrived. Everyone was so happy. It was a great night. The only bummer was that the Badger hockey team was eliminated from its postseason that night.

 

Anyway, that's now almost a decade-old event. Sigh.

[igor67]

I was at UW during 3 of Dayne's 4 years and the Final Four run it definitely was awesome. There was just such an energy and buzz during the week for Marh Madness after that first weekend.

[Oldcity]

As a 14 year old kid I was at one of my brother's basketball tournaments when they played Arizona. I'll always remember all the people crowded around the TV watching that game instead of their son's/brother's game.

[davego]

When LSU started to pop-off about how Wisconsin wouldn't be able to run the floor with them...I knew Dick had them right where he wanted 'em.

 

Beating Purdue was something. One of my favorite sports memories.

[cooprules]

My family and my wife's family are huge Badger fans. This made it all the more difficult when the Wisconsin/Michigan State Final Four game ended up being the same day as our wedding. The country club where we had the reception only had a few TVs in the bar area so we had the game audio piped into the reception area. This wasn't enough for my brother, my best man, who sat at the head table with his headphones on. It was pretty funny.

 

It's actually something that we always bring up whenever anyone asks how long we've been married. As much as it sucked not being able to sit and watch that game, it was kind of a cool experience having all our family and friends in one room listening to it. I don't remember who the heck got them for us but someone got the whole wedding party Final Four Badger hats to wear at the reception. It was pretty awesome.

[homer]

When LSU started to pop-off about how Wisconsin wouldn't be able to run the floor with them...I knew Dick had them right where he wanted 'em.

 

Beating Purdue was something. One of my favorite sports memories.

I was in Vegas during round 1 that year and put $25 on the money line for UW about 5 minutes before tip off of the Arizona game.

 

That was money well spent. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Buckylovesbeer]

It was my Freshman Year at UW (1999-2003). What a great season. Going to State Street and seeing a huge mass of people from one end to the other was awesome! It was the first time I was ever "body passed" over peoples heads. My friends lifted me up, and I was passed for two whole blocks of state street! Everyone was celebrating and having a great time....

 

The celebration at Camp Randal when they returned was really cool as well. I wish I could have had a video camera! The players were all going crazy and it was well worth the wait.

 

That was a great time to be at UW. With Ron Dayne, it made for some great student season tickets!

[hawing]

When LSU started to pop-off about how Wisconsin wouldn't be able to run the floor with them...I knew Dick had them right where he wanted 'em.

See, now, that's the part I just couldn't figure out. Did they even look at tape of UW/Arizona? or did they just think "yeah, but that won't happen to us"?

It has always seemed kind of 'fool me twice, shame on me.'

[brewers4eric]

I'm an outsider to Wisconsin college athletics, but that was an incredible run to the final four. As an Iowa State alumni, I still cringe whenever the 2000 tournament is brought up. I'm biased into thinking that Iowa State deserved a number 1 seed and that the national championship was determined when Michigan State beat the Cyclones. My opinion creates a hypothetical "what if" of whether or not Iowa State as a number 1 would have been just as vulnerable as Arizona to a Wisconsin upset. I would say yes, based on the Dick Bennett style of basketball. However, Marcus Fizer had an incredible tournament and was a difficult matchup for any team that Iowa State faced.

[bjkrautk]

Having grown up in Central Wisconsin, then moving to Green Bay just before middle school, and then going to school at the UW....I used to joke with friends about following Dick Bennett the way others used to follow the Greatful Dead. (Which makes the current nickname for the students section all the more trippy.)

 

I was also one of the UW students inside Camp Randall for the welcome home celebration. As soon as I saw the draw that put them against Arizona...I actually felt good about their chances for the upset. That was the type of stylistic mismatch that I had seen Dick Bennett coached teams shine through in the past (all the way back to Tony's UWGB team taking out Jason Kidd's Cal Bears). I'd be lying if I said I picked them to make the Final Four, but it was so much fun to watch them get there.

 

 

Really interesting to see what some of the players are up to 10 years later. Amazed that Maurice Linton is working in an industry that requires the most attention in November and December....rather than a job where he can just coast until mid-January into February.

[hawing]

I worked at UWGB from 1990-1992, so I was on campus there for the Phoenix's first trip to the dance (when they were robbed - robbed! - by Michigan State in the first round). From the day the Phoenix Bookstore began selling NCAA tourney t-shirts to the day I left Green Bay (a year-plus later), I swear I saw someone wearing one of those shirts daily.

 

The S.O. took one of Dick Bennett's classes as an undergrad at UWSP back in the day; but even my household in sum hasn't tracked coach Bennett quite like bjkrautk. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Jimbo]

I'm in the process of digitizing all of my old VHS tapes and yesterday was the day I coverted the Indiana, Purdue and Michigan State games from 2000. Nice memories!