Wisconsin Badgers Basketball Final Four alums Ben Brust (of ESPN Milwaukee) and Sam Dekker participated in a WTMJ’s Wis. Morning News 5Q on Thursday. Click the player to hear their answers.
Erik: What’s the worst you’ve ever been yelled at by a coach?
Brust: Oh, that’s easy-peasy lemon squeezy. It was my sophomore year. We were at a closed scrimmage against DePaul at 11:00am. So my freshman year, I didn’t play sophomore year in the summer, I’m like, I got to get in the rotation. Got to be the sixth man, the first guy off the bench. And then I start running and leaking out on offense as I’m the first guy off the bench. I’m like, one minute into playing, and I’m like, I made it. My guy sticks around, pokes it away from Jared Berggren and lays it in. Coach calls timeout right in front of me, looks at me and says, “You stupid mother%$^*r! You do that again, you’re never going to play here.”
Erik: And you remembered that? Okay, good.
Brust: I dove on loose balls in the second half. I played great and never was yelled at again.
Dekker: As Ben knows, I was yelled at a lot. Yeah, quite often. Any guy that played with me at Wisconsin knows I was yelled at quite a bit. I think the worst or maybe the most. The one that stuck with me the most was my sophomore year. We had just lost to Ohio State. And coaches were like ‘This is unacceptable. Each player needs to look themselves in the mirror’ or whatever cliche quote. And I remember thinking ‘I’m not playing up to the standard. We’re not playing to the standard of basketball that we can play.’ This was Ben’s senior year and Ben might remember this, but coach came in and just lit into me in the locker room. “If I played here, I would have put you up on the wall!” I think he was doing a thing to make him the common enemy.
Brust: The funny thing is, I could probably think of ten other ones. “Sam! Sam, why are you standing there? Sam, why’d you let your go guy go back door? Sam, why didn’t you box out? Sam, why didn’t you do this? Sam, why didn’t you do that? Sam, you’re out.”
Erik: How did you celebrate going to a Final Four?
Dekker: The first year we were out in Anaheim, California. We were just in Cali, so we didn’t really do much. But I remember the next morning we had a little pep rally, I’d like to say, which was really fun and really cool to see.
Brust: Sam, were you not at the pool party? Frank Kaminsky’s dad, my dad. We opened up the pool. Hotel security was like, ‘you guys can’t be out there.’ I don’t know if they paid him off, but we had a little celebration in the hot tub.
Dekker: I completely, completely forgot that! yeah, we were in the hot tub. I remember that. And someone almost broke the chair that hangs over the pool that you’re not supposed to sit on? Well, somebody sat on that, almost broke it. I remember that.
Brust: The coaches were at the bar and I think they knew we were out there. I mean, it was Bo’s first Final Four and he’s like, all right, you know, I’m knee deep in it. We had a little fun, to say the least.
Dekker: Yeah. And Year Two, the second time around, it was much more business as usual. I think it was more like we did a full celebration the first year that the second year we were like, all right, there’s still two more games if we want to win this whole thing. So it was way more, I think, subdued in a way. m. I think we kind of sat and watched Kentucky, Notre Dame, I want to say, and kind of we’re like, all right, this is who we got and got on the plane, went back to Madison.
Brust: But you saw the party after you beat Kentucky, and I was obviously overseas, but it looked like a hell of a time for any Badger that was in the hotel in Indianapolis.
Dekker: It was actually kind of wild and they were just like waiting for us every time we would open the door. and I remember I like had to sneak and get us like pizza and beers, like to have post, game. I remember me and Showy were like, this is insane. We still have a game on Monday.
Erik: Cinderella’s. Yay or nay? Are you into the Cinderella’s or would you rather see the best play the best?
Brust: Give me a Cinderella through the sweet 16 then I want the best to play the best. I want to see the best play the best later on.
Dekker: I am all in on Cinderella’s. you know, I think we all have as basketball fans some core memories of Cinderella’s. I think George Mason always comes to mind. So yes, I do like Cinderella’s a lot. Davidson, you know, I know they had Steph Curry, but they beat Wisconsin team to go the elite eight.
Brust: I was rooting for Davidson. I was at Ford Field in Detroit because Davidson was my first offer. So I was rooting against Wisconsin, cheering for Davidson because I had not had an offer from Wisconsin at that point.
Dekker: My mom was rooting for Davidson too. She loved Steph Curry in college.
Erik: Do you prefer 11am Tips or 10pm Tips?
Dekker: 11A. 100 times out of 100 million times. Get me to the game, let me play and then you have the rest of the day to do whatever you want. I said that when I was 18. I say that now as a 30 year old professional basketball player. Give me the early start time, you get the game out of the way because I hate saying it like that, but when you have a late game, there’s so much dead time.
Brust: All we would do is play video games and like be like, ‘just get us there.’
Dekker: As a pro, there’s so much dead time. It’s like, all right, let’s watch more film. Let’s watch more film. Hey, let’s have another team meeting. Let’s have another team snack. And it’s like, let’s just get me to the game. Who is coming to a 9:00 game? Like on a weekend, the game should be anywhere from 12 to 3p. I’ll die on that hill.
Brust: You naturally have like, just like athlete anxiety of like, excitement. And to hold that in for a whole day sucks.
Dekker: And having shoot around early games, you don’t have a shoot around, so all you’re getting is just basketball. One, basketball game, shoot around. It’s like you have a real practice in the morning kind of and then game. So you’re just double dipping basketball when you have a late game.
Erik: Where do you want to play basketball? Giant, enormous cavernous stadium or a tiny, tiny gym venue?
Dekker: I like a nice, intimate, loud, claustrophobic gym. I think there’s something about it that’s so fun. yeah, you see it all over the world. The ones that are 4,000 to 8,000 seats, I think that get packed. Really, really fun.
Brust: I think Sam and I were were tied in scoring at Jerry World at 80,000 people. It is the Hoosiers line. It’s all the same distance and whatnot. Once you start playing, you forget about it. But there’s a reason why my favorite place to play was Mackie Arena. It’s loud as hell. It’s awesome. Like, it’s an environment. And, we won two of the only five wins ever. once my sophomore year, I think Sam was a senior in high school. And then my senior year, Sam was a sophomore and we got two wins against Purdue in the five total ever at West Lafayette.
Erik: The most memorable chant or roast you’ve ever heard while you were on the court. Sam, you got one?
Dekker: Yeah. My senior year of high school state championship game. In the 4th quarter, they were chanting ‘overrated’ at me. And our assistant coach, Mike Theobald, grabbed my dad and asked ‘you hear that?’ And my dad (the head coach) was locked in the game, said no. And (Theobald) said, ‘that ain’t smart.’
Brust: The rest is history.
Dekker: Yep. Yep.
Brust: So, yeah, Sam hit the game-winning three (lifting Sheb Lutheran over Racine Lutheran). We just talked about this at Mackey arena my sophomore year. They had a guy who, wasn’t very skilled, was like a rebounder defender guy. His name was (Travis) Carroll. And we were up seven, and the game was over, and he got fouled. There’s like, 10 seconds left in the game. And Purdue’s own student section goes, “Carroll, you suck!” So they chirp their own player. So that’s actually my favorite memory.
Erik: How successful have you been filling out a NCAA Tournament bracket?
Brust: Well, before Sam was there, one of our teammates that transferred had us knocked out in the Round of 32 against Vanderbilt (in 2012), who we ended up beating. So, that was interesting. Clearly, he was not ‘all into the program’ and filled out a bracket as a player, which is just weird.
Dekker: I’ve never had a good bracket in my life.
Brust: Good to hear you didn’t knock yourself out early.
Dekker: I do have one story about that. I had so much anxiety my rookie season. The Houston Rockets had a team bracket, promotion thing. So they put all of our brackets on the jumbotron during every timeout, and I had, like, five brackets. So this one bracket, I had Wisconsin losing in the Sweet 16, and that was the up and down year for Wisconsin. I think that was Greg Gard when he took over for Coach Bo Ryan through the season. And I had them losing, I think, in the sweet 16.
Brust: You were right.
Dekker: They put that one on the Jumbo Tron. And I had so much anxiety that it was going to get posted and that I was going to get a call from somebody at the school and say our fans get all on my case. So I actually had the person change what bracket they put on the Jumbotron because I was so nervous that I was going to get called out.
Brust: So this is a good, plug right now, because this is just a little bit of what you can hear of a 2015 Final Four anniversary. I have nothing to do with 2015. I will be hosting it. Sam Decker, Frank Kaminsky, Josh Gasser, Bo Ryan, many others stopping by June 26th in Madison. We’ll be doing some promotion on where you can get tickets, but a little teaser right now of what you’re going to get.
Erik: Who wins the championship this year?
Dekker: Oh, my gosh. I would love to say Wisconsin, if not, then Florida.
Brust: All right, Florida’s the sexy pick. As it should be. Give me Tennessee. Best defensive team in the country with a score this year. They finally have a scorer and they beat Auburn. Riding Tennessee. Rick Barnes needs this.
Erik: You guys are amazing. Sam, what a nice treat. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
Dekker: Thanks. Yeah, we’ll see you.
Brust: Talk to you soon, Sam.
