Nigel Hayes Nigel Hayes Funny Moments
Take Five: Five viewpoints in five days, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Badgers' historic 2015 NCAA Tournament
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BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Nigel Hayes was living an inconspicuous life as a professional basketball player in Turkey — his team "Galatasaray" might pose a moderate spelling challenge for most NCAA tournament stenographers — when the former Wisconsin player was approached by a stranger.
What were the odds that someone in Istanbul, the largest city in Europe, a city of over 15 million people, would by happenchance cross paths with Hayes and make the connection to an epic March Madness conquest of Kentucky?
Better odds, obviously, than you could have gotten on the Badgers pulling off that upset by stunning the undefeated top-seeded Blue Bloods in the semifinals of the 2015 Final Four.
"Are you Nigel?"
That drew an affirmative response.
"I watched you guys when you played Kentucky."
Hayes was almost rendered speechless.
"To be in a different part of the world," recalled the 25-year-old Hayes, a Toledo, Ohio native and the fourth leading scorer in school history (1,857 points), "and to have someone come up and recognize you from that game … it shows you the impact and magnitude of it."
April 4 will mark the fifth anniversary of Wisconsin's "Make' em Believe" statement; a convincing 71-64 win over the Wildcats in front of 72,238 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and 22.6 million on Turner Sports. Kentucky, you'll remember, was the first team to ever start a season 38-0 in the process of Chasing the Ghosts of Unbeaten Seasons Past (Indiana, '76).
Alas, the Wildcats came up short in the only game that really mattered, the one they finally lost. Or rather, the game that the Badgers won; a fitting payback, to their thinking, for a heartbreaking defeat to the Wildcats in the 2014 semifinals of the Final Four at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
"We knew that we were capable of winning," Hayes, who has had short stints with three NBA teams before going overseas, stressed. "That was something we said all year. I remember watching them on TV in our locker room and watching the platoon system they had. We all said the only weakness of that team is when they're matched against big guys who can shoot.
"And we just happened to have the Player of the Year (7-foot Frank Kaminsky). We always knew that was something that could hurt them when the 4's and the 5's can step out and shoot and create. That was something we took advantage of and, fortunately, we were able to make shots."
The Badgers not only made their shots from the field (23-48, .479), the 3-point arc (7-17, .412) and free throw line (18-of-22, .818) but their "bigs" on the frontline and wings rebounded their position and stretched the Kentucky defense. Kaminsky had 20 points, Sam Dekker had 16 and Hayes had 12.
From the onset, it didn't take long for Hayes and friends to get theirs head into the game. Andrew Harrison, who hit the game-winning 3-pointer the year before, made his first shot, a triple. And that was followed by a Karl-Anthony Towns steal and Willie Cauley-Stein dunk to stake the Cats to a 5-0 lead.
All of 49 seconds had elapsed.
Impressed not intimidated, Hayes said, "When he jumped out of the gym and dunked the ball, we all looked at each other, 'Hmmm, this may not be our day, guys.' It was kind of funny to look back and think about it. But in that moment, we were like, 'Wow, all right, pretty good team we have here …'"
Let's go to work. That was the underlined message, stated or otherwise. Hayes summarily got the Badgers on the board with a couple of free throws and Dekker knocked down a 3-pointer and just like that it was 5-5 and the players had their bearings, gotten up to speed and punched back.
That quick response was one of two things that has stuck with Hayes.
"The other is a story that I've told before on the embodiment of Trae's leadership," he said of senior point guard Traevon Jackson who injured his foot in mid-January at Rutgers and missed 19 games. "There was a possession where I caught the ball and I didn't shoot it when I should have.
"Trae was yelling at me, 'Shoot the ball.' He believed in me. And the next possession, or maybe it was two possessions later, he called a play for me. He had me set a screen for a pick-and-pop. As he was throwing me the ball, he was yelling 'shoot' and I shot, and it went in.'"
Hayes has not forgotten that act of leadership on the part of Jackson. Nor T-Jack's role in mentoring Bronson Koenig who was elevated to the starting lineup in his absence. A determined Jackson wound up returning for the Sweet 16 and scored six points in 12 minutes against the Wildcats.
Hayes has also not forgotten the post-game reception at the team hotel, the Omni in Indianapolis, a short walk from Lucas Oil Stadium. Fans lined the entrance on the street and jammed the lobby while the UW players soaked up the raucous atmosphere from an overlooking balcony.
"That was fantastic to come back after the game and see all the fans that were there to congratulate us," Hayes remembered. "It was kind of like one of the more surreal moments. We kind of felt like rock stars coming back to the hotel after a concert. Something like that."
Later, some old friends from his AAU-playing days joined Hayes in his hotel room.
"We were watching SportsCenter as they were talking about the win," he recounted. "And there was still all the hoopla over it, 'Can you believe what Wisconsin just did?' And one of them said to me, 'Wow, you guys really did beat them.' And I just said back, 'Yeah, we did. That is kind of crazy.'"
Hayes has never watched the replay of that Kentucky game.
"We really try not to talk that much about it whenever we talk amongst ourselves, me and the guys that were part of that," he said of his ex-Badger teammates. "We just talk about the season and the fun that we had with each other, more so than that game. But it was definitely an historic moment."
So were the back-to-back Final Fours and he has plenty of mementoes as a reminder.
"I've kept anything and everything from the post-seasons at Wisconsin. I'm like a souvenir-hoarder," Hayes said. "Any trinkets we got, any book bags. When I played there, our players were notorious and infamous for taking as many things as we could from the venues once we finished.
"Anything that wasn't nailed down, we took. I have a ton of stuff."
Mostly, he has the memories from the locker room, the practice gym, the outings, the trips.
"We were a very special group and the only thing that would have made it perfect was winning it all," said Hayes, a little scarred by a loss to Duke in the national championship game, a game in which there was some questionable officiating though he conceded, "The fact is, we didn't get the job done."
Reflecting on their legacy, he went on, "I would say we were the greatest basketball team in Wisconsin history — the most fun team and most beloved. That's something people knew. We were very good, and we had fun with one another. We were like a family which was the most important thing."
There was something else about that close-knit group.
"We did a great job of enjoying the moment," said Hayes, who has never stopping thinking of his old pals. One of them, Matt Ferris, has been after him all these years to watch "The Office" — a widely-acclaimed TV sitcom that is more popular than ever in syndication.
Hayes succumbed to the peer pressure, or Ferris pressure, and became a fan, much to his delight. So much so that he quoted one of the characters Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) from the final episode: "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."
Pondering those words, Hayes added, "Those two years with that team could definitely qualify as the good old days. I think we took that advice and we enjoyed it while it was happening."
They definitely looked like they were enjoying themselves at those NCAA press conferences; a playground for Hayes whose personality was unleashed, especially during some good-natured banter with the stenographers who were documenting everything that was being said in those forums.
Cattywampus. Onomatopoeia. Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Those were his carefully selected words. His spelling challenges to the stenographers.
Five years later, Hayes and the rest of us have been forced to come to grips with another word.
Pandemic.
"It's kind of like we're in a movie that is very unbelievable," Hayes said of the rampaging coronavirus outbreak that has been reshaping our norms. "It's really crazy — that is what most people would say — and it's an unfortunate circumstance that we're in now.
"The fact that we can travel the world and go anywhere we want, it also means the disease, the virus, in this case, can travel across borders or cross worlds. Now that we're in this situation, we just have to take the advice of the medical professionals and try to abide by those rules."
As an athlete, Hayes has never subscribed to "When you lose, it teaches you this and that."
On the contrary, he said, "I've always been an advocate that you don't need to lose, and nothing needs to go wrong in order for you to be prepared for something. Unfortunately, I don't think the majority of the world was ready for a worldwide pandemic.
"But there was one, and now moving forward, we'll be able to handle future ones.
"And try to prevent them."
On Saturday, on the fifth anniversary of Wisconsin's stirring victory over Kentucky, Hayes will be self-quarantining in a Toledo hotel room. He says that he has another week left following his return from Lithuania where he played this past season. It accents another word. Reality. Today's reality.
Source: https://uwbadgers.com/news/2020/3/31/mens-basketball-nigel-hayes-we-did-a-great-job-of-enjoying-the-moment.aspx
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