Following the departure of two all-time Wisconsin greats in Sam Dekker and Frank Kaminsky, the fate of the program was expected to fall squarely on the shoulders of juniors Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig. Redshirt freshman Ethan Happ was considered nothing more than a solid prospect.
Both coming off dynamic sophomore seasons when they flashed real potential as superstars, Hayes and Koenig were seen as the future for the Badgers. Koenig has been, at times, a mild disappointment, but he's also carried the team in dark times, as he kept UW alive against Michigan State, recording a career-high 27 points.
Hayes has been phenomenal, averaging 17 points, six rebounds and more than three assists per game. Draftexpress.com pegs him as the 30th-best prospect in college basketball, should he choose to forgo his senior season and head to the NBA.
But the brightest light has the been the beacon of hope emanating from Happ, a soft-spoken recruit out of small-town Rockridge High School in Illinois.
After spending his redshirt year under the tutelage of Kaminsky, Happ stepped onto the court for the first time after much anticipation to welcome Western Illinois to the Kohl Center. When the referee blew the whistle and tossed the ball in the air, he became just the third freshman to ever start a season opener under Bo Ryan.
Happ's long-awaited arrival was cut short due to foul trouble, and he finished the game with just four points and three fouls. Two days later, Siena marched onto campus and was promptly walloped, 92-65. But again, Happ fell victim to his own mistakes, recording eight points and four fouls in just 18 minutes.
Over the course of the next two-and-a-half months, Happ blew up, averaging 12.4 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.1 blocks and 1.6 steals per game. After playing just the sixth-most minutes on the team through two games, he's now the bona fide second-best player on the team.
"Game score" is a metric developed by Memphis Grizzlies Vice President of Basketball Operations John Hollinger to measure a player's overall contribution to the game. It takes into account virtually every box score statistic available, and weights them according to their approximate worth.
By this measure, Happ's season has been the best freshman campaign in Wisconsin basketball history. He's been far better than recent outstanding freshmen like Hayes and Dekker, but that's only the start of it.
Although offensive rebounds, turnovers, fouls and game logs were not all tracked by sports-reference.com until 2009, we can estimate older players' numbers based on the numbers of more recent players that fit the same mold.
Among all Wisconsin freshmen from the Bo Ryan era, Alando Tucker and Devin Harris were by far the best. Yet through 32 games, neither broke a cumulative game score of 300 (Tucker finished just shy at 298.2 and Harris finished at 289.2).
Happ currently sits at a total game score of 246.9, already fourth in the Bo Ryan era despite playing just 24 games. Marked on the graph with a dashed vertical line is the 31-game mark, the amount he's guaranteed to play should he stay healthy.
At his current pace, Happ will surpass Dekker in his 26th game, Harris and Tucker in his 29th and will become the first Wisconsin freshman to break 300 in his 30th. Now, that 31-game expectation is assuming the Badgers lose in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament and miss out on any postseason play, which is looking increasingly unlikely with their current six-game winning streak.
Wisconsin will be expected to win at least one game in the Big Ten Tournament and have a good shot at playing at least one game in the NCAA Tournament, meaning we can project Happ for about 33.5 games. Extrapolate his current pace to that many games and he's expected to post a cumulative game score of 353.2, shattering the Wisconsin freshman record set by Tucker way back in 2003.
Happ's on-campus hype did not spread far from Madison until the season really got rolling. Prior to the start of this year, there was virtually no mention of Happ from any news outlet outside of Wisconsin. Any excitement surrounding Happ's debut for UW was overshadowed by a slew of high-upside recruits heading to other Big Ten schools.
Despite Happ's rapid improvement in preparation for his first year on the court, the biggest recruiting news for the Badgers was their failure to land either Henry Ellenson or Diamond Stone, two consensus top-10 recruits from Wisconsin.
Ellenson would head to in-state rival Marquette, while Stone moved out east to conference rival Maryland after much controversy surrounded his commitment to Wisconsin.
Elsewhere in the Big Ten, five-star recruit Caleb Swanigan chose Purdue over Michigan State, while four-star recruits Thomas Bryant and Deyonta Davis headed to Indiana and MSU, respectively.
Without much pressure to live up to expectations, Happ has thrived. Although he is currently second in cumulative game score among Big Ten freshmen, a good bit behind Stone, he has done so in far fewer possessions.
Because of Wisconsin's slow, deliberate pace, Happ has had far fewer opportunities per game to make plays than his counterparts in the Big Ten. In fact, of the top-15 Big Ten freshmen in cumulative game score, he's participated in the fewest team possessions, yet still ranks second in cumulative game score.
When adjusted for team pace, Happ is averaging a game score of 16.1 per 100 possessions, tied with Stone for the lead among freshmen. Happ is also tied for third among underclassmen forwards/centers and ninth overall among underclassmen (Hayes leads the way at 19.4).
What Ethan Happ has been able to do in his first season at Wisconsin is unprecedented. The numbers he has put up, the skills he's showcased—it's simply never been done. Badger fans haven't been deprived of great big men in recent years; Kaminsky, Jared Berggren, Jason Bohannon, Mike Bruesewitz all had fantastic careers in the Cardinal and White. But with three full years of eligibility left, Happ just might outshine them all.
