HOF CLASS OF 2026: "A Promise Kept' - The Sam Dekker story
July 14, 2026 | General News, Men's Basketball, Andy Baggot
At first, Bo Ryan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Ryan, then the Wisconsin men’s basketball coach, was checking out prospects at his advance summer camp in June of 2010 when the image of Sam Dekker, a sophomore prospect from Sheboygan, flashed before his eyes.
“Sam got a rebound and he turned and there was a guy at the top of the key at the other end,” Ryan explained. “He saw the guy was open and threw an 80-foot, one-bounce pass to this kid for a lay-up.
“That’s when I told his dad, ‘Boy, would he look good in red,’” Ryan said of Dekker. “I said, ‘I want him.’”
By the end of the day, Dekker, a 6-foot-7 forward, had committed to the Badgers, triggering a conversation in which he said something that Ryan had never heard before, never mind from a 16-year-old.
“I promised Bo that we would go to a Final Four,” Dekker said. “He said, ‘Are you actually promising that?’ And I said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’”
Ryan said that he’d “really never had another player say that at 16 when he was in high school.”
Ryan said he “really liked” Dekker’s awareness, presence and confidence.
“Sam did mention playing in the Final Four someday and I know I really liked that because he seemed like the type of kid, the way he played at our advanced camp, he just seemed like the kind of guy who could do that,” Ryan said.
“He was confident, but not cocky. He felt like he could do something like that (leading a school like Wisconsin to a Final Four).”
Dekker experienced it not once, but twice on some of the most dynamic teams in program history. He was a sophomore starter in 2014 when the Badgers advanced to the national semifinals where they fell to Kentucky 74-73.
Twelve months later, UW got a measure of revenge against the Wildcats in the Final Four semis, ending UK’s unbeaten season at 38 games, courtesy of 71-64 victory. However, the Badgers were unable to get past Duke in the championship game, enduring a 68-63 setback.
The only other time UW played for a national title was in 1941 when it knocked off Dartmouth, Pittsburgh and Washington State on the way to a perfect finish.
“He was a treat to coach.”Bo Ryan, former UW Head Coach
Dekker’s signature moments as a junior came in the NCAA West Regional when he accounted for 50 points in wins over North Carolina and Arizona that earned him the Most Outstanding Player award.
Turns out Dekker had all the goods when he arrived in Madison. He was named Gatorade Player of the Year, the Associated Press’ Player of the Year and a part of the Parade magazine prep All-American team in when he was a high school senior in 2012.
Dekker cultivated a flair for the dramatic when he led Sheboygan Lutheran to its first Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association state boys’ title. He scored 40 points, including the last 12. That closing stretch saw Dekker nail the game-winning 3-pointer with 2 seconds left.
“I know that’s what he wanted – to play at the highest level and get to the mountain top,” Ryan said.
“He wasn’t a braggart. He wasn’t that kind of a guy that didn’t put the work in. He did the things (necessary) to help to get those teams to the Final Four.
“He is one of the few guys that I’ve recruited in all those years at Wisconsin that said that’s what he wanted to do and he was part of a group that did it.
“He was a treat to coach.”
Dekker subsequently turned pro after his third season with the Badgers and was a first-round NBA draft pick of the Houston Rockets. After an 11-year professional career in the NBA and overseas, he recently signed up to be an assistant coach at South Carolina.
His willingness to put himself out there – making a promise and actually keeping it – is one of the reasons why Dekker’s being inducted into the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.
“I’m just proud that I was able to help do that for my home state and the school that I’ve loved my whole life,” Dekker said.
Ryan asked a lot of Dekker.
“I was pretty hard on him early on, because I saw what he had,” the Naismith Hall of Fame coach said. “I just felt he was the kind of guy you could put a workload on and he would take it and run with it.”
Dekker said his promise came with a lot of responsibility.
“It was one of those things where, he loved (the promise declaration), but he was like, ‘I’m going to hold you to that,” he said of Ryan. “I think that’s why he always kept me locked in and always had my feet to the fire because he knew what I expected out of myself and our team and he wanted to show me that he had these expectations for me and even greater than that.
“Sometimes I didn’t always like that, but it’s what I needed.”
Greg Gard was Ryan’s top assistant who now runs the show at UW.
“Bo was not easy on Sam,” Gard said. “Bo coached him really hard. That didn’t set well early. Sam wasn’t ready for that type of attention and I think it forced Sam to mature and grow maybe faster than he was ready.
“But just how he evolved through that time, obviously he became a terrific player.”
BEST OF THREE
One: Ryan took a good-natured dig at Dekker’s promise of getting the Badgers to the NCAA Final Four. “In retrospect, why didn’t he say he wanted to win a national championship? We came up six points short,” Ryan said of a 68-63 loss. “So, c’mon.”
Two: What’s the most important lesson Dekker learned at Wisconsin? “I think I’ve told this story a million times,” he said. “It was a speech I heard from Bo Ryan when I was a recruit and they had just had a tough loss. Instead of coming in screaming and yelling things I’ve heard before, he said, ‘You know, this was a good lesson. You know, we didn’t come ready and we weren’t ready for the day. And every day is a new opportunity and every day there’s a blank canvas in front of you. Before you go to bed at night you will look at that canvas. Did you create a masterpiece? Well, amazing. Try to do it again the next day. Was it a horrible failure of a painting that you can’t even look at? Good. It’s a lesson.’
“It’s just that kind of an idea that you’re in control of painting what you want your day to be and that you’re in control of how you respond to that as well. We’re not always going to have these perfect paintings, these perfect days. But the next day we can get up and hope to correct mistakes or repeat things that we thought we did well. For some reason, as a teenager, I was really moved by that. To this day I remember it and talk about it to young players and people I try to help.”
Three: Dekker’s late grandfather-in-law is Bob Harlan, a long-time executive with the Green Bay Packers. Is there a lesson from him that still resonates? “Everywhere you go, if someone comes up to you or someone talks to you about Bob, it doesn’t matter what kind of a day he was having or what kind of day the franchise was having, he always had time for people and he always had a smile on his face and would look you in the eye and actually listen to you.”
At Camp Randall Stadium on Thursday, May 28, University of Wisconsin Interim Director of Athletics Marcus Sedberry revealed that Sam Dekker will be inducted into the UW Athletic Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
The class of legendary Badgers will be inducted into the Hall of Fame later this fall during a weekend of celebration on September 18 and 19. The inductees will be honored inside Camp Randall Stadium during Wisconsin Football's meeting with Eastern Michigan (Sept. 19 – 11:30 a.m. CT).
