Once fall hit, campus changed. It wasn't just buzzing, it was alive and thriving with students from all walks of life. You could feel its pulse. Forty-thousand students were in motion: walking, biking, buzzing past on scooters going in every direction with a sense of purpose and energy I hadn't quite experienced before. It was the first day of class, and the morning felt golden. The trees on Bascom Hill were painted in brilliant oranges and reds, and the air was filled with new beginnings. I remember just standing there for a moment, backpack over one shoulder, taking it all in. I had made it. I was finally here.
My schedule that first semester was ambitious with 15 credit hours. I wanted to get ahead academically, maybe prove to myself and my family that I could handle this. But I quickly learned just how different this level was. Managing a full class load while juggling the growing responsibilities of Division I basketball at a high-major program was more than a challenge it was a wake-up call.
Classrooms were packed. Discussions were rapid. Deadlines came quick. And in between it all was basketball the one place that still felt like home, even when it got uncomfortable. And it did get uncomfortable.
Once official practice began, everything ramped up. What we'd been doing during the summer with those intense but manageable skill sessions now looked like warm-ups. We were deep in the Dick Bennett system now. Three-hour practices, six days a week. A schedule that demanded everything.
Some days, we barely even touched a basketball. It was defense, positioning, close-outs, rotations, over and over again. This wasn't just about playing it was about unlearning old habits and relearning basketball from the ground up. Coach Bennett didn't just teach the game he carved it into you. And as grueling as it was, I was hungry for it.
Still, there were moments when I felt behind. The pace was faster, the expectations higher. Everything was under a microscope. The game I loved now lived inside film rooms, scouting reports, rotations, and terminologies that made my head spin some days. But I didn't fold. I asked questions. A lot of them.
And the returners Mike Kelley, Roy Boone, Andy Kowske, Travon Davis, Maurice Linton, Charlie Wills they showed up for me every time. They pulled me aside. They walked me through drills. They made the game slower for me in all the ways that mattered. They didn't just talk about the culture they lived it, and they passed it on.
But nothing taught you faster than game-speed drills. There was this one afternoon, a 1-on-1 drill just me and Mike Kelley. And let me tell you, Mike wasn't just any upperclassman. He was the reigning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and one of the top on-ball defenders in the entire country. And I was the freshman trying to make a move on him.
I prided myself on my handle, but that day? I couldn't get past him to save my life. He was everywhere I went mirroring me step for step, chest to chest. Every crossover, every jab, he read it like a book. And then it happened I tried to make a hard move to my left, and BAM. We collided.
Our heads snapped together like cymbals crashing. We both dropped to the floor. My head ringing. I looked up, dazed and Mike's front tooth was gone. Not just gone stuck in my forehead.
Blood was trickling down my face, and the gym stopped cold. Coaches ran over. Trainers rushed in. Mike, tough as nails, shook it off like it was nothing. I was pulled aside and ended up needing stitches but that collision told me everything I needed to know about this level. This wasn't high school anymore.
Preseason felt like an eternity. Three-hour practices, defensive breakdowns, film study, weight room sessions, training room rehab, class, study hall rinse and repeat. My body ached. My mind was overloaded. But my heart was all in.
And when the days felt long, I called home. My dad would answer, excited to hear the latest and I gave it to him in full detail. He was living it through me, in a way. So every sprint, every dive on the floor, every team huddle I carried both our dreams with me.
By the time the season opener arrived, I wasn't just ready. I was transformed.
That preseason was more than just an adjustment. It was a reckoning. Everything I thought I knew about the game, toughness, pace, and preparation had to be reshaped. I wasn't just playing basketball anymore… I was surviving a system built to expose my limits and rebuild me in its image.
The 6 a.m. lifts didn't care that my legs were heavy from the night before. The study halls didn't care that my mind was already flooded with rotations and help-side positioning. And the practices? They were battles. Long, grinding, no-frills wars where even the ball seemed like a privilege, not a guarantee. Three-hour sessions where sweat came before shots, and defense was gospel.
But there was a strange power in that kind of discipline. It stripped me down, exposed my flaws, and forged something harder underneath. That preseason didn't just get me in shape it got me sharp. Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
It was my real first taste of what it meant to be a Division I athlete. Not the uniform, not the highlights. But the grind. The humility. The daily choice to show up even when everything in me wanted to slow down.
And at the center of that storm, I was growing. Quietly, steadily. I could feel it in my body as I was getting stronger, faster, more resilient. I could feel it in my mind in seeing the game more clearly, learning how to anticipate, adjust, think two plays ahead. The vocabulary of basketball expanded, and with it, so did my vision.
It wasn't easy. But it was necessary. And by the time that first game arrived, I wasn't the same kid who showed up with a suitcase and nerves. I was different now. Because I was learning truly learning to bleed Badger red.
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Chapter 75: History at Our Fingertips
The city of Madison was ready. Every street corner, every classroom, every barbershop, every brick on campus was charged with something more than excitement. It was a kind of sacred anticipation. A feeling that history wasn't just waiting to be made it was demanding it.
We weren't just playing Michigan. We were standing one win away from something that hadn't been done in over half a century. A Big Ten title. Not since 1947 had this school, this city, this team stood at the top of the mountain. And yet, here we were. One win away.
That morning, Travon Davis and I stopped by JP's Barbershop our community's pulse. The kind of place where truth lives and where people speak life into you, whether you're ready to hear it or not. The barbers, uncles and big bros there didn't just wish us luck. They looked us in the eye and told us: "Handle business. Hang that banner. Bring it home." I laughed, but deep down I felt the weight of their words. Their voices echoed with every step I took that day.
Across campus, the atmosphere was electric. Students were throwing pre-game parties. People you didn't even know were stopping you on the sidewalk, shouting from balconies, pointing from across the street: "Tonight!" Professors cut class short with a wink and a message: "Get it done." The city felt like one organism. It had one heartbeat. One breath. One purpose.
By shootaround, we were locked in. Film session felt different not just because of what was at stake, but because we knew exactly who we were. We weren't guessing anymore. We weren't hoping. We were ready.
And then it came tipoff. The Kohl Center wasn't an arena that night. It was an altar. The sound inside wasn't noise it was a roar of belief. So loud you couldn't hear the man next to you. So alive you could feel it in your chest. Coach Ryan huddled us up but his words barely cut through the thunder. It didn't matter. We didn't need to talk. We knew what we came to do.
From the opening minutes, we executed like men possessed. Every screen. Every pass. Every closeout. We played like a team that was answering a calling. And when those shots started falling three after three after three the building shook. Thirteen made threes. That wasn't just a stat. It was a release. Years of sweat, sacrifice, struggle erupting with every swish.
Devin and Kirk were flawless scoring 21 points each. Controlled chaos. Measured brilliance. And I found my moments too scoring 10 points off the bench. No hesitation. Just rhythm, purpose, flow.
The final horn sounded with us up by 20. The crowd poured onto the court like a flood. There were no barriers just humanity. Raw, real, relentless joy.
We cut nets and climbed the stage. Coach Ryan, sweat-soaked and smiling, stepped to the mic. His voice cracked with pride. We raised the trophy. We raised it high. And the sound that sound will never leave me.
I looked into the stands and saw my dad and Emerald. I could see it in their faces. Not just pride, but knowing. Knowing what this meant. Knowing what I'd fought through to stand here.
And suddenly, everything slowed down.
I saw my mom's face behind that glass during jail visits. I heard the shattering of back windows from a stray bullet in a Cadillac. I felt the car spin out after a head-on crash I somehow walked away from. I saw a broken home, a cracked city, and a boy who kept choosing to get up.
And now… this.
I was standing on the hardwood of the Kohl Center, Big Ten trophy raised above my head, with thousands of voices lifting me higher than I ever imagined I could go.
It wasn't just a game. It wasn't even just a title.
It was proof.
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Chapter 97: Leaving with Everything
When the lights dimmed on my college career, what remained wasn't just the win-loss column, the banners, the trophies, or the stats. It was the journey. The climb. The evolution from a kid in Milwaukee with too-big shoes and hand-me-down dreams to a man who found his purpose on the hardwood.
I wasn't supposed to make it this far. Not from where I came from.
Back then, the goals were simple, survive, stay out of trouble, keep your name out of the wrong conversations. The odds weren't in my favor. Not in a neighborhood where futures got stolen at bus stops or lost in back-alley dice games. Not in a home where struggle was a familiar roommate and dreams felt like luxuries we couldn't afford.
But the game gave me more than a shot. It gave me a roadmap.
And Wisconsin? It gave me a second home.
I came in unproven. A skinny, wiry guard full of fire and flaws. I didn't have the stars behind my name, but I had grit beneath my feet. And over four years, brick by brick, minute by minute, game by game, I built something real. I battled for everything I got. From earning playing time to becoming a starter, from fighting through injuries to hitting game-winners on national television, I poured my soul into that jersey.
I found a second family in my teammates and coaches. A second heartbeat in every red-clad fan who packed the Kohl Center with nothing but belief.
And I found love. Real love. The kind that walks beside you through every single storm. The kind that finds you after summer workouts, unexpected, and forever changes the way you see the world.
So yeah, we didn't get the storybook ending. No Final Four. No cutting down nets in April. But what we built? That mattered. What we stood for, the toughness, the accountability, the unselfishness, that mattered.
I walked away with something far more permanent than points or banners. I walked away with gratitude.
Gratitude in the journey. Gratitude in how I carried myself. Gratitude in proving that a wide-eyed kid from Milwaukee can dream and work like hell to make that dream come true.
