Senior day approaches for Ethan Happ
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin forward Ethan Happ’s career in Madison is just about over. He and fellow seniors Khalil Iverson and Charles Thomas will play their final game at the Kohl Center on Thursday night against Iowa—giving Happ a chance to put a bow on a five-year career that has included some of Wisconsin’s highest highs and their lowest lows.
It started during Wisconsin’s 2014-15 season, which ended with their second trip to the Final Four in as many years. Happ chose to redshirt that season, despite some mid-season growth that gave him a chance to get on the court and help the team as they tried to get back to the promised land.
It included the disappointment of last season, which saw Wisconsin’s 20-year streak of making the NCAA tournament come to and end as the team struggled to reload after the core that carried them to at least the Sweet Sixteen in four consecutive seasons exhausted their eligibility.
The Badgers are hoping to get a few more games out of Happ this year, where the No. 21 Badgers have all but locked up another trip to the Big Dance by riding Happ’s 17.8 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.
Senior day will certainly be a bittersweet moment for Happ, who hasn’t missed a game for the Badgers since he cracked the starting lineup in the 2015-16 season. But he’s at the point now where he can look back on the records he has set at UW and still think back to when he got on campus just hoping to get on the court as soon as he could.
“When I came here ... I just wanted to get minutes,” Happ said on Tuesday after practice. “Graduating high school I was like ‘I just want to get on the floor.’ But then after that redshirt season (where) I was going up against Frank and I could kind of feel my confidence growing as the year went on. And then hearing stuff like Josh saying I would be ready to play immediately next season, things like that gave me confidence. I never thought that it would be to the statistical standpoint that it is, but I always knew after that first redshirt year that I was going to have a special career here.”
Head coach Greg Gard said it was impossible to predict that Happ would turn in to the postseason All-American candidate he is today back when he first joined the team, but said that Happ has had a chance to learn and grow from experiencing the different highs and lows the Badgers have faced over the last five years - and added that Happ has grown more off the court than he has as a player.
“He’s probably had the widest scope of experiences of any guy we’ve had here in terms of what he’s been a part of,” Gard said on Tuesday. “He’s had to transform from being a quiet mouse in the locker room, so to speak, to being a leader of this group for the last couple years. I think he’s leaving here with as wide of a spectrum of experiences as any guy we’ve had come through here in terms of he’s seen some ultimate highs and he’s seen some rough spots. I think that will serve him well, regardless of what he does basketball-wise for his future. Just life lessons that he can take from here.”
And while Happ and the Badgers don’t know just how many games he has left before he’ll move on to bigger and better things, Happ said he thinks he’ll be able to look back on his time with the Badgers without any regrets.
“I spent a long time here in Madison and a lot of games on this court,” Happ said. “There were a lot of games that we wish we could have won that we left out there but I had such a good time through all of it. I can’t say I have too many regrets. I’m going to miss it, obviously, but I can say that I had a full complete career here and I’m proud of everything my teammates have done.”
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John Veldhuis covers Wisconsin football, basketball and recruiting for BadgerBlitz.com on the Rivals.com network. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnVeldhuis.