Jordan Smith isn’t used to the spotlight.
Throughout his five years in Madison, the redshirt senior guard has lived in relative anonymity when compared to most of his teammates, a group that includes some of the best players to ever slip on a Wisconsin uniform.
With only 16 points and 52 minutes of game action to his name, Smith isn’t exactly the first guy fans think of when it comes to Badger basketball.
But on Sunday afternoon, Jordan Smith had the spotlight all to himself.
As the sole senior on UW’s roster this season, Smith was the total focus of the Senior Day festivities. Prior to tip-off, a video package celebrating his career was aired on the big board, which included a special message from former roommate and best friend Frank Kaminsky.
Though Kaminsky has graduated and now plays in the NBA with the Charlotte Hornets, Smith says he still stays in contact with the former Wooden Award winner.
“Frank and I stay in touch all the time,” he said. “We went down and saw him play Milwaukee last week. We got to hang out with him after the game, spend some time talking to him after the game, so that was fun.”
While being honored alongside his parents before the game certainly was an unforgettable moment for Smith and his family, it’s what he did at the end of the actual game itself that was truly memorable for those in attendance and watching at home.
With the Badgers pulling away late and the game’s result well in hand, the Kohl Center crowd implored UW interim head coach Greg Gard to put Smith in with “We Want Jordan” chants throughout the game’s final minutes.
Finally, with 33.8 seconds remaining, they got their wish, as Smith checked into the game to a thunderous ovation.
On his first possession on defense, Smith corralled a rebound off a missed 3-pointer and was fouled, sending him to the free-throw line with a chance to score a couple of points.
That golden opportunity wasn’t wasted, as he sunk both to a smattering of applause. After hitting the second free throw, which made him Wisconsin’s leading scorer off the bench on the evening, Gard took Smith back out of the game, allowing him to get one more standing ovation from the Kohl Center crowd.
“It was great to see him get out there and get to the free-throw line,” junior guard Bronson Koenig said. “He's just a guy who comes up great in practice every single day and doesn't complain, does his job, and makes everybody else better.”
It was a storybook ending for Smith and a heartwarming moment for a guy whose contributions behind the scenes go mostly unnoticed by fans and the general public.
For starters, Smith played a pivotal role in practice as a member of the scout team, often times playing the role of the upcoming opponent’s sharpshooter. According to freshman Khalil Iverson, it was a role that Smith excelled at.
“When he’s on scout team, he doesn’t miss at all during practice,” Iverson said. “With the other team always having a good shooter on their team, he normally plays that guy. In practice, he pushes all the guards to be focused all the time.”
In addition, he provided veteran leadership and experience to the locker room to a team that has seven freshmen on its roster, which was especially valuable during some of the rough patches early in the season.
“Everybody always wants more minutes and more playing time, but for him to commit and sacrifice like he has, he's made great contributions that will never get in a box score or in the headlines for this program,” Gard said. “He’s made a huge contribution to this program and has helped solidify this locker room with a little more experience, especially this year with going through the growing pains we have gone through.”
“It’s been great, I’ve kind of embraced [being the only senior],” Smith said of his role on this young team. “I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs here at Wisconsin, whether it’s the first year with a Sweet Sixteen, second year losing in the first round and then back-to-back Final Fours. For these young freshmen, it’s good to have a guy like me who’s been through it all. When we’ve had ups and downs like we’ve had this year, it’s good for them to have someone like me to talk to.”
And although he may have not always been at the front of fans’ minds, he still acts as a bridge to what almost seems like an entirely different era of Wisconsin basketball.
When Smith first stepped on campus as a walk-on in 2011, he was playing alongside the likes of Jordan Taylor, Ryan Evans and Jared Berggren as part of a team that advanced to the Sweet 16 before falling to No. 1 seed Syracuse.
One year later, he was part of the Wisconsin squad that was bounced in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by Marshall Henderson and the Ole Miss Rebels. At the time, the Badgers were a powerhouse program within the Big Ten, but they were generally an afterthought when the NCAA Tournament rolled around. The loss to Ole Miss in 2013 only served to further push the national narrative that Bo Ryan couldn’t win in March.
Of course, the program’s perception underwent a paradigm shift with the ensuing back-to-back Final Four runs behind guys like Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and Josh Gasser, culminating in a national championship game appearance last April.
“Coming in, that’s what you assumed. You’re coming to Wisconsin, we have a tradition where we’re consistently in the tournament and winning one or two games and then you’ll see where you go from there,” Smith said of the program’s perception when he first arrived. “I think we said it best when we came in as a freshman class with me and Trae [Jackson] and Frank and all those guys. Trae always used to use the term ‘changing the culture at Wisconsin.’ Turning it into a perpetual contender, and I think we were successful in doing that where people think of Wisconsin now and they’re like ‘ok, back-to-back Final Fours.’ We’re a contender every year and we should be up there. It helps with recruiting and everything down the road. It’s been awesome. It was a great couple years for us.”
From Jordan Taylor to Ethan Happ, Bo Ryan to Greg Gard and everything in between, Smith has been a constant presence within the program throughout one of the biggest transformative periods in its history.
During his five years at Wisconsin, much of Smith’s work to benefit the team as a whole has been done behind the scenes when few are watching. So perhaps it was only fitting that he got a moment in the spotlight all to himself for all to see in his final home game as a Badger.
