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It took a whole season but Wisconsin finally felt the pressure against Duke

It took a whole season but Wisconsin finally felt the pressure against Duke

INDIANAPOLIS — The lasting image of the weird, wild and wonderful Wisconsin season will be Frank Kaminsky’s goofy and unassuming grin, pasted on the front of magazine covers and leading websites as he took his team on a journey to the final game of the year.

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Yet on Monday night, the final picture of the Wisconsin big man was one we hadn’t seen before. After awkwardly folding himself on the back of a golf cart, a quiet Kaminsky put his head in his hands and let his tears flow into a red T-shirt as he headed toward the postgame press conference. Fellow senior Josh Gasser, who Kaminsky embraced on the court as confetti fell around them, sat next to him and did the same.

“It’s tough to say anything right now,” Kaminsky would later say on the podium, his unique college career over after a 21-point, 12-rebound effort in a 68-63 title game loss to Duke.

The loquacious and stenographer-testing Badgers team at a loss for words — except for when lobbing passive-aggressive barbs towards the officiating — was a strange sight to see after the contest.

But the truth is that Wisconsin had stopped resembling the team the world of college basketball had fallen in love with around the 10-minute mark of the second half.

On Wisconsin turning into Off Wisconsin cost them dearly.

While Wisconsin had prided itself on taking every punch and never flinching during adverse situations, it did just that when the school’s first title in 74 years looked like it was in reach. The Badgers couldn’t hold a lead, they seemingly wilted when a bevy of second-half calls went against them and they didn’t have answers when Duke’s freshmen showed they weren’t particularly interested in missing any big shots.

For the last 10 minutes, the team of destiny label looked too heavy for the Badgers to shoulder. They were the opposite of what let them run through the Big Ten, a tough West regional they topped with the first No. 1 seed in school history, and a Kentucky team that had won 38 straight games and seemed destined for an undefeated season before running into the Badgers buzzsaw.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

“Usually those last five minutes we usually outplay our opponent, and Duke just made more plays when they needed to,” junior forward Sam Dekker said. “They got to the line and made it tough on us defensively. On our end, I guess they weren’t as physical, or so they say. They definitely outwilled us and won it.”

Falling short against Duke led to a lot of frustration in a red-eyed and devastated Wisconsin locker room and some gripes with the officials that started with a Bo Ryan interview on CBS before it signed off the air.

“There was more body contact in this game than any game we’ve played all year, and I just feel sorry for my guys that a game was like that,” Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan told Tracy Wolfson. “They’re struggling with that. We missed some opportunities, they hit some tough shots, but it’s just a shame that it had to be played that way.”

Just inside the door, Nigel Hayes said he was trying to be “politically correct” when answering questions about the refereeing. Dekker simply said it was “disappointing.”

Sophomore guard Bronson Koenig took a little more outward issue and acknowledged the team was rattled by Duke getting more calls down the stretch.

“It’s tough to stop them when they’re setting hard screens like that, you’re doing everything you can to show your hand,” Koenig said. “They throw something up and call a foul. It’s pretty hard to defend that.”

Did the Badgers’ beef with the officiating crew hold weight? Wisconsin was whistled for 13 second-half fouls to Duke’s 6, but only had two called against them in the first half to Duke’s 7. A seemingly-wrong out-of-bounds call just before Tyus Jones drained a three to extend the lead to eight hurt, but like Hayes’ putback with the shot-clock expired in Saturday’s epic win over Kentucky, it was far from being the only difference in the game.

“We’re not blaming anyone but ourselves,” Dekker said. “We’re not giving credit to anyone but Duke.”

When the tears dry and the Badgers are able to put things in a better perspective, they’ll see what tilted the game Duke’s way.

Reserve Grayson Allen scoring eight straight points for Duke after Wisconsin had taken a 48-39 lead with 13:25 left and Dekker later admitting he hadn’t taken the team’s scouting report on Allen as seriously as he should have.

The Badgers again having no answer for Tyus Jones, four months after he lit up the Badgers and introduced his star in an 80-70 win at the Kohl Center in Madison.

Wisconsin's Sam Dekker, left, and Traevon Jackson sit in the locker room after their team's loss. (AP)
Wisconsin's Sam Dekker, left, and Traevon Jackson sit in the locker room after their team's loss. (AP)

Ryan coaching less than his best game, launching his usual diatribe on the officiating when perhaps his team could have used a lower-key approach in the moment and pulling Koenig from the floor after he had scored six points on a hot-hand to push that lead to nine.

Dekker going 0-for-6 on three-point attempts after looking unstoppable against Arizona and Kentucky. Duke’s freshmen combining for 60 points while Wisconsin’s seniors combined for 28, three-quarters of which were scored by Kaminsky.

What will forever remain a disappointment to Wisconsin is that they got so close and couldn’t finish the job. Two years after Dekker and Traevon Jackson turned a first-round tournament loss to Ole Miss into a pledge to elevate an already solid program to a championship caliber, they were about 10 minutes from finishing their second straight Final Four trip with an actual banner toward which all future classes would aspire.

Beat Duke and they would have completed a high-level title won by going through the toughest road possible and through teams like the Blue Devils that brought twice the number McDonalds’ All-Americans onto their team with their last recruiting class (four) than Wisconsin has in its entire history (two, neither of which were on this year’s team).

Beat Duke and the decisions of Kaminsky and Dekker to return to school after last year’ last-second Final Four loss to Kentucky and chase that title would have received the ultimate validation.

But as Gasser noted after the game, “life’s not fair.”

“They said what they wanted to do, they put themselves into that position, and they won't forget this for a long time,” Ryan said. “I told them that's life. Wait till you get a job. Wait till you start the next 60 or 70 years of your life. It's not always going to work out the way you would like it to.”

How will it work out now? Kaminsky is off to the NBA with his drained eligibility not allowing him another year to get past this one last hurdle. Dekker will likely join him and the team will be handed off to Hayes and Koenig as Ryan attempts to reload with the homegrown players he said on Monday night he preferred to “rent-a-players.”

"These guys are my family, and I mean that literally," Kaminsky said. "I don't mean that hypothetically. I've never been closer to a group of guys in my entire life, from the coaching staff on down to every single player on this team. It's just going to be hard to say good-bye."

Though disappointment and a decent amount of bitterness clouded the short-term view, it shouldn’t take Wisconsin long to see the bright side of their season and what made them such a happy-go-lucky story to follow.

A bookend pair of Big Ten regular season and tournament titles. Two straight trips to the Final Four. A vengeful win over Kentucky that altered the course of college basketball history. The admiration of a lot of fans who don’t normally wear red or cheese on their heads but were entertained by their antics and enjoyed watching the trip nonetheless.

“This team had everything, man,” Dekker said.

Everything except 10 more minutes of the basketball that got them here.

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Kevin Kaduk is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kevinkaduk@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!