Frank Kaminsky, the Weirdo Hero of March Madness

Frank Kaminsky scored double-digits in just four games his sophomore year. Three of those games came in garbage time during the non-conference season, against luminaries of the college basketball world such as Presbyterian, Nebraska-Omaha, and Samford. Still, the flashes were there. Kaminsky, clad in an absurd goggles-and-headband combination after suffering an eye injury, dropped 19 points in 23 minutes against Illinois on February 3, 2013. And in an upset win over Trey Burke's Michigan team in the Big Ten tournament—the same Michigan team that went on to make the National Championship game—Kaminsky scored eight second half points, including four in the final six minutes as senior starting center Jared Berggren sat on the bench with four fouls.

With 2:24 to go, Kaminsky took Michigan (and current Oklahoma City Thunder) center Mitch McGary off the dribble from the top of the key, blew by him, and popped a left elbow jumper to put Wisconsin up 58-54. The Badgers led by at least four for the rest of the game and won by a 68-59 final. "There were some really big moments in that game; that was one of them," Michigan coach John Beilein said in the post-game press conference. "Kaminsky got an angle to drive to the basket, and all of a sudden he was driving by us. That one's going to be striking for a little bit."

"Frank was loose," Badgers coach Bo Ryan said. "Frank was into it, he had that look in his eye." I covered that game from courtside at the United Center, and it was then and there I really started to believe Wisconsin might have more than another player in Frank Kaminsky.

But this? Here we are now, a little over two years later. Kaminsky is an All-American and a Player of the Year. He has taken the Wisconsin basketball team to as many Final Fours in the past two years as it had reached in the event's first 75. His 57 points and 16 rebounds in two Elite Eight matchups will be nightmare fuel for Arizona fans for years. He set the school scoring record with 43 points against North Dakota last year. He is, without question and with all due respect to Michael Finley and Alando Tucker and 1941 NCAA Tournament MOP John Kotz, the best player to ever wear the Wisconsin uniform.

The way he's done it, the way he's grown into the nation's best player, couldn't be more Wisconsin basketball. He was an awkward high school player who grew into his body late. He grew from 6'3" as a freshman to 6'10" as a junior. The guard skills he picked up before his growth spurt stuck with him, and as he settled into his body the post moves he struggled with before became more and more natural. It's almost a carbon copy of 2007-11 Badgers star Jon Leuer's story. The forward, now with the Memphis Grizzlies, grew 10 inches in high school, and like Kaminsky, was an inside-outside threat for the Badgers, with the ability to shoot the three and score on drives as well.

That these guys keep ending up at Wisconsin is no accident. The foundation of Wisconsin's offense is players who are comfortable with the ball in any offensive situation, whether it's posted up on the block or waiting for an open three-pointer at the top of the key. Every defender has a weakness. Most guards don't have experience covering the post. Big men don't like to wander out to the three-point line. And in Wisconsin's offense, you've got to be able to take advantage of that weakness, wherever it shows up and whoever is guarding you. It's the often overlooked players like Kaminsky, forced to learn these skills throughout high school and AAU competitions and even early college due to odd timing and growing pains, who are able to apply these principles best in the Badger red.

Against Kentucky, Kaminsky was facing the best defense of an entire college basketball era, a front court bigger than most in the NBA, and the best individual defensive prospect in a decade in Willie Cauley-Stein. And Kaminsky carved them up. He used a little bit of everything. He drew Karl-Anthony Towns away from the basket with an early three-pointer. He destroyed Wildcats guard Devin Booker on switches whenever he had the chance, nailing three interior shots and scoring seven points on the 6-foot-6 freshman in his 19 minutes on the floor. He put Cauley-Stein through the spin cycle on majestic drives through the paint, drawing fouls and nailing acrobatic scoop shots. He blocked two shots and pulled down 10 defensive rebounds against one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country. Whatever Kentucky threw at him, Kaminsky had an answer. Whatever Wisconsin needed, Kaminsky gave them.

Kaminsky was asked at the team's press conference Sunday how he became "The Man." He responded, perfectly, "I wasn't prepared for a question of this magnitude. Do you want an intellectual answer?"

No. Good God, no, Frank. I want no such thing. All I want is one more game of Frank The Tank, spinning through the lane, kissing it off the glass, pulling down rebounds, nailing three-pointers, and doing everything else a basketball player could possibly do to win games. Nobody has better exemplified Wisconsin basketball nor made it more fun in his time in the Badger red than Kaminsky. Tonight, we get one more game of the loosest, weirdest, goofiest basketball star to ever come through Madison, Wisconsin—or anywhere else in the nation. I, for one, am going to savor every minute of it.