Ethan Happ is the Quiet Force Behind Wisconsin's Success

The Wisconsin Badgers have appeared in the NCAA tournament for the past 19 consecutive years. That's nearly two decades of A-lister status. Conventional wisdom tells us that you only get so many shots at this. But when you're Wisconsin, the bar is apparently open.

And the Badgers, as you may know, are no tournament wallflowers. After Saturday's 65-62 upset of defending national champion and East Regional No. 1 seed Villanova, Wisconsin has now crashed four straight Sweet 16s—a string of top-shelf success matched by only 11 other schools since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. That makes six Sweet 16 appearances in seven years, a total of 10 since 2000.

And for all this, the Badgers are college basketball anesthesia, a program whose blend of tempo (crustacean-like), tradition (a 76-year championship drought), and location (Midwestern tundra) have, over the long haul, mostly numbed the senses. Before former coach and program pater familias Bo Ryan arrived in Madison in 2001, Wisconsin hadn't won a Big Ten regular-season title since 1947. The Badgers have not landed a single McDonald's All-American since 2003.

Yet the Badgers, the East's No. 8 seed, have now made more consecutive tournament appearances than all but a handful of college basketball bluebloods: Kansas, North Carolina, Duke and Michigan State. And the players? Those big "coachable" stiffs, who supposedly make better insurance salesmen than NBA swingmen? Five of them can currently be found on NBA rosters, including 2015 national college player of the year Frank Kaminsky (Charlotte) and Sam Dekker (Houston), who led UW to the title game only two years ago. Some programs carry a certain stigma—until they don't. Winning has that effect.

"I feel as a program, we've always been kind of underestimated," says senior guard Bronson Koenig. Koenig should know: He turned down scholarship offers from the Tar Heels and Blue Devils to become a Badger. "It doesn't really matter to us. It's nothing new."

Tucked neatly into the narrative is Ethan Happ, Wisconsin's sophomore center and the Badger-iest of Badgers. Tall, slow and not exactly limber, when Happ scores, it is almost exclusively from the paint—hooks, drop steps, spin moves and step-throughs. In a universe of off-the-bounce 25-foot jumpers, he is a Mikan Drill come to life.

Yet despite his seemingly antiquated approach, a closer look at Happ's season reveals unprecedented production. In the past 20 years, no major-conference player has matched his per-game averages entering the NCAA Tournament: 13.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.1 blocks. Take into account Wisconsin's preferred pace (the Badgers' 66.9 possessions per game ranks 331 out of 351 Division I teams), and the numbers really pop. As recently as early February, Happ led all D-I players in both offensive and defensive rating, according to Sports Reference, effectively grading out as the best all-around college basketball player in the country.

Happ, however, was no more than a faint blip on most programs' radars as a teenager in tiny Milan, Illinois. Considered a three-star recruit by most evaluators, he arrived on campus undersized, overwhelmed and unlikely to contribute much to a loaded squad. Kaminsky recalls Happ approaching the team's seniors in 2015 to solicit opinions about whether he should take a redshirt season.

"I think, at the end of the day, he wanted to take that year, get better, get stronger, work on his body, work on his game, so that when it was his turn, that there was no letup from what our group could do," Kaminsky said. "And I think that really speaks volumes to the kind of person and worker that Ethan is."

Happ's skills, though apparent even then, were unpolished. He had played point guard through middle school—had even been a shooter—and initially was hesitant about a move to the post. Growing steadily, he shot from 5-foot-9 in the eighth grade to 6-9 as a senior at Rockridge High. But even as Happ began to understand the importance of leveraging his frame, he would need time—and proper competition—to figure it out. When he ultimately decided to redshirt as a freshman, Happ played on the Badgers scout team in practices, matching up with Kaminsky in 5-on-5s most days. The results were mixed.

"Some practices, he'd be there and willing to battle and playing the way he does right now," Kaminsky said. "But he also had those freshman practices where he got overwhelmed, things didn't go his way, he got frustrated—things that I used to do when I was a freshman, when I was a young guy. I see a lot of my progress, the way that I progressed—I saw a lot of that in Ethan."

Happ bulked up, learned to battle and sharpened his footwork that season. He pestered Kaminsky for any juicy bits he was willing to share, then incorporated them into his own game. "You see how good he is with his hands in the post—especially on defense," Kaminsky said. "That back-tip steal is what I used to do to him in practice."

Working with Kaminsky and current Badgers coach Greg Gard, Happ discovered the value of angles and timing around the basket—the subtle, essential geometry of effective post play. When, finally, he took the floor in a Wisconsin uniform for the first time, he wasn't perfect. But he was ready.

"If you saw, at the beginning of last year, I was not very good, and then I slowly got better with the more game experience I had," Happ said. "And now having more game experience into this year, I think just having time on the court, not only playing with my teammates, but also just seeing things, [I know] what to do and what not to do."

"He's not one of those guys who's gonna out-jump everybody," Kaminsky said. "He's not always the strongest guy on the court, he's not the fastest. But you can see it: He's always in the right spot."

Still, Happ's high-energy thinking-man's game isn't always enough—certainly not when it comes to impressing pro scouts. In the currency of hoops rhetoric, "cerebral" and "scrappy" are damned faint praise, back-handed code to describe a kid missing a strand or two of essential athletic DNA. And although his borderline blend of size and explosiveness aren't deal-breakers, they won't cut it given his current profile.

What Happ needs, clearly, is a shot.

He has yet to attempt a 3-pointer in his collegiate career. Hell, he rarely lets fly from outside the restricted zone. Far more troublingly, Happ's free throw shooting this season (50.0%) has been an albatross. A late-season swoon of five losses in seven games for Wisconsin coincided with Happ's 13-for-33 tailspin at the line. He recovered in the Big Ten tournament, knocking down 10 of 14 as UW advanced to the title game, then followed with a combined 2-for-6 stretch in tournament wins over Virginia Tech and 'Nova. With Florida next up, on Friday in New York, which Happ will be stepping to the line for the Badgers?

Toby Whiteman swears his guy is a shooter. Happ's high school head coach at Rockridge promises he has stacks of film proving Happ's range and consistency. The growth spurt, Whiteman says, has scrambled Happ's muscle memory. Adjusting to his new body will require repetitions, and repetitions take time.

"Another thing I don't think people realize is … he's got the largest hands," Whiteman said. "They just engulf the ball. I'm not saying he's got hands as big as [Shaquille O'Neal]. But look at Shaq trying to shoot free throws. It's like trying to shoot a free throw with a ping-pong ball."

And in the meantime, those hands—and Happ's length in general—are poking away quite a few dribbles, passes and shots. They're also handy for corralling rebounds, leading the break (a holdover skill from his days as a lead guard) and putting the ball on the floor to whirl and snake by defenders on the block. Kaminsky says, "There's a spot for someone like him" in the NBA, but there is no rush for that. Happ is, in many ways, already well ahead of the curve. Even now, he and the Badgers appear to have the sort of mix that makes a deep tournament run possible.

But first, Florida. The Gators are long, athletic and, seemingly, peaking. They swarmed East Tennessee State in the first round before dismantling fifth-seeded Virginia, a deliberate, defense-first club that bears some similarities to Wisconsin. The difference: The Badgers' first-rate front line. Happ may well find himself checking Devin Robinson, one of the stars of the tournament's opening rounds, but the matchups shouldn't matter much. Nigel Hayes, though likely shorter than his listed 6-8, has a ridiculous wingspan, plus the strength and smarts to lock up more gifted players across the frontcourt. Happ and Hayes are versatile defenders who, on the other side of the floor, are as comfortable setting up Koenig and Wisconsin's perimeter shooters with deft passing as they are scoring from the post. Whether or not Happ hits shots, he'll give the Badgers a chance to build on the program's growing lore.

And next year? Further down the road? Just how far—literally and otherwise—can Happ stretch his game?

"He was home a couple weeks before school started [last summer]," Whiteman said, "and he was up at the gym, up at the high school again with the guy who works him out—jump shot, 3-pointer after 3-pointer. I think he got up 1,000 of them. He just works. The kid just constantly works. If it's something he's not good at, if it's something he needs to get better at, he won't stop."

Want to read more stories like this from VICE Sports? Subscribe to our daily newsletter.