The 2020 class of the UW Athletic Hall of Fame has been selected and new members will be announced from June 15 - 26. Visit UWBadgers.com each day to celebrate each new member of this distinguished and historic class of Badgers!
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — One of the basketball rims was in the front of the barn. True bounces were hard to come by on the gravel. Another rim was hanging inside the barn. The hay mow could be a hazard. Yet another rim was in the back of the barn and provided the most even surface. Concrete.
"There really wasn't a backboard on two of the rims," Mike Wilkinson remembered.
As long as there was a hoop — attached to whatever wood frame — he could get some shots up.
"We couldn't do a whole lot, but shoot," he reasoned.
But shot-making was far more valuable than ball-handling on the farm.
"We shot for chores in the barn," Wilkinson said.
Usually it was a game of H-O-R-S-E or P-I-G between Kendall Wilkinson and his oldest sons.
"If we won, we wouldn't have to do certain chores," Mike said. "If we lost, we'd do more."
Kendall could shoot with either hand. He played collegiately at UW-Richland Center.
"My dad didn't let us win very often," he said. "Then it got to a point where he couldn't win."
As the boys got older, it was the inevitable rite of passage within the family.
"One of those things," he said, "where my dad quit playing when he couldn't win anymore."
By then, Mike, the oldest of five children, was on his way to taking his game to another level.
But how far could he take basketball? Or how far could basketball take him?
"It was something I was good at," he conceded humbly.
Wilkinson was good enough to be named Mr. Basketball in the state while averaging 28 points and 12 rebounds during his senior year at Wisconsin Heights High School in Mazomanie. He was also the Associated Press Player of the Year and scored 30 or more points 11 times, including 40-plus twice.
Wilkinson was good enough to take his game to market, the recruiting marketplace; even though he sheepishly admitted that while growing up on the farm, "I never thought too much about playing in college" until recruiters from Iowa, Utah, Marquette and Wisconsin began courting him.
Wilkinson was good enough to wait his turn as a Badger freshman while maturing physically as a redshirt; good enough to lead the team in rebounding four straight years; good enough to start every game his last three seasons; good enough to account for 1,532 points, 856 rebounds and 222 assists.
Wilkinson was good enough to draw the ultimate compliment from Bo Ryan ("He plays like he practices, he practices like he plays"); good enough to be called the "Poster child for how we want to play post defense" by Greg Gard; good enough to play professionally overseas for nine years.
In sum, Mike Wilkinson was good at a lot of things. But he was really good at basketball.
Good enough to be inducted into the University of Wisconsin's Athletic Hall of Fame.
Gallery: (6-19-2020) 2020 Hall of Fame: Mike Wilkinson
"I was actually sitting on a tractor when Coach Alvarez called — I think I was putting crops in," Wilkinson said of getting the good news from Barry Alvarez, the UW's director of athletics. "It's definitely very exciting. And it's one of those things that I never thought would happen to me."
It was so fitting that he took the call while farming because he has come full circle.
Nearing retirement in his pro career, he decided to invest in his future, the farm. Wilkinson was raised on some 240-plus acres, near Blue Mounds, 30 miles from the Kohl Center. In 2010, he bought into the farm as half-owner with his mom and dad, Peg and Kendall, who grew up on the same property.
Today, he has his large hands in many things, including Liberty Supply, an asphalt and pavement maintenance business that he runs with one of his brothers, Sam. Last week, his undivided attention was focused on tending to 75 acres of hay and bailing 6,000 small squares in 48 hours.
"I definitely do enjoy the farm work," said the 38-year-old Wilkinson. "I enjoy being able to see the results of the work you do. The work ethic can be related to basketball. With farming, there's also a lot of decision-making, split-second decisions, that can go hand-in-hand with being an athlete."
As a teenager, he had to get up early in the morning to complete his milking chores before going to high school. The dairy cows have since been replaced by beef cattle. Three years ago, the Wilkinson's purchased another 100-plus acres. Including rented land, they're working close to 400 acres these days.
"Growing up on a farm, it's all about work," said Wilkinson, who's the part-owner of a neighboring farm, too, with an aunt and uncle. "You have to be willing to put the time in, willing to do what is necessary. Those were always things that came easy to me."
Back in the day, Wilkinson used to bring some UW teammates out to the farm. After giving them a small taste of his lifestyle, whether cutting and splitting firewood or bailing hay, he discovered, "They'd help one day and they never wanted to come back. It was a lot harder than they thought it was."
Wilkinson rarely lifted weights before getting to Wisconsin. Not that it mattered.
"I didn't have a whole lot of time for that, I was doing mostly farm work," he said. "You get a lot of exercise and a lot of lifting doing different things on the farm. You'd handle maybe 1,000 bales of hay in a day. Basically, you're picking up 50 pounds 1,000 times, if not 2,000 times."
Gard could relate to Wilkinson's work ethic since he also grew up on a family farm.
"We could both speak the same language from that standpoint and we still do," said Gard, who was raised in Cobb, Wis. "Obviously, he was farmer strong. Big hands, big legs. He utilized the weight room, but there was a level of strength that he got by throwing bales of hay."
Gard first saw Wilkinson at a Bo Ryan summer camp in Platteville. At the time, he confided, "I don't know if you envisioned an All-Big Ten player. But his body and game matured."
Redshirting as a UW freshman under Dick Bennett and Brad Soderberg gave him space to mature. The Badgers were coming off a Final Four appearance and returned most of their bigs on the frontline: Andy Kowske, Mark Vershaw, Maurice Linton and Charlie Wills. All were between 6-foot-8 and 6-9.
"The redshirt was important from the standpoint of putting weight on," Wilkinson said. "I went from 195 to 225 that year. Just being able to play against those guys every day in practice, I learned a lot. I know the redshirt is not right for everybody. But looking back, it was definitely the right decision."
Carrying the weight of inflated expectations, on top of Bennett's unexpected retirement, the Badgers struggled with continuity. "There were a lot of games that I wanted to play," Wilkinson said. "Talking with some teammates they wish I would have because they thought I would have helped.
"But playing on the scout team and not having to worry about anything my redshirt year, I could just play. And there were instances in practice and there were days that I could score at will. And that's when you start to realize you can do really well here."
In 2001, Ryan took over the program and Wilkinson's growth was accelerated in his system. During his first year of college eligibility, he was a steady contributor off the bench. Along with leading the team in rebounding (5.3), he scored in double-figures 15 times and fashioned four double-doubles.
That was the most by a Big Ten freshman that season.
That was also the most by a UW freshman since Rashard Griffith in 1993-94.
"I've always had a good relationship with Coach Ryan from when he was recruiting me and I was going to camps in Platteville," Wilkinson said. "He always understood how to get the best out of his players. He knew what to say to guys to get to motivate them and get them to play their hardest.
"He was great at reading the game. In order to coach, you need to know how to handle egos and everything like that, almost as much as you need to know the X's and O's. Even though he was hard on us, some of his competitiveness rolled over to the guys. We kind of fed off each other."
Among Wilkinson's teammates were UW Hall of Famers Devin Harris and Alando Tucker.
"Both were mentally tough guys," he said. "They worked hard and they were easy to get along with. Both were very smart basketball players. I played with Alando overseas, too, and the relationship and chemistry that we developed helped make me better."
Tucker, the school's all-time leading scorer, and Harris, a 15-year NBA veteran, could cast a long shadow. So much so that it prompted former Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien to say, "Mike Wilkinson is probably the most underrated player in the league. He just does all the good things."
Former Ohio University coach Tim O'Shea expanded on that theme.
"Mike Wilkinson is one of the most underrated players in the nation," O'Shea said. "He's 6-8, he can rebound, he can shoot the 3, he can beat you off the dribble, he makes great decisions with the basketball. You talk about Wisconsin and you talk about Devin or Tucker. Wilkinson gets overlooked."
Wilkinson, who never missed a game, flourished in the background and out of the limelight.
"It's always easier to play basketball," he said, "when you're on a team that wins."
Gard has always singled out Wilkinson's winning formula for playing low-post defense.
"We still show clips of him playing defense to our players — very grainy clips before HD (high definition television)," he said. "With each generation, it gets a little harder to watch with each copy that we make of the clips. But he epitomized how we want to play defensively at the post.
"Everybody always talks about being ambidextrous with your hands as a post player. But your feet are equally important. Mike was so comfortable with his feet and his footwork. If you watch the film, he was always in control defensively. He had a low center of gravity and used his hips really well."
Wilkinson's heart factored into his defense.
"I was just competitive," he acknowledged. "I always took it personally to try and play defense. I've always been a believer that if you were skilled, you could play offense. But anyone could play defense. It's just a matter of how hard you want to work at it.
"It wasn't hard for me to play defense. You've got to be able to read and recognize what teams are running and what guys are trying to do offensively. And you could do that by watching tape. It's just a matter of recognizing those things in the game and your decision-making.
"You take a little bit from everybody on the team, whether it be the guards in learning how to get over screens or how to set and use screens. Or big guys on positioning. There really wasn't just one person that I learned from. I would say it was more of a collective thing."
Talk to anyone who played with Wilkinson and they will say the same thing. He was the perfect teammate; a low-maintenance, skilled, tough, durable gamer. Brian Butch once observed, "He's one of those guys who doesn't have an ego. He's just trying to do what's best for the team."
Wilkinson had the same mindset as a pro.
"The biggest impact was adjusting to the lifestyle my first two years in Greece," said Wilkinson, who also played five years in Russia and one each in Turkey and Bulgaria. "I really learned how to handle the way things are done over there (Greece) and it set the tone for rest of my career.
"I was fortunate to have good teammates who showed me the ropes and what I needed to do and how to deal with all the politics. In Russia, I was always treated like I was a local because I tried to speak the language. I got along better with some of the Russian guys than some of the Americans."
As a Wisconsin senior, Wilkinson filled out a standard questionnaire for the 2004-2005 basketball media guide. There weren't many revelations from the agricultural business major. When probed on his future path and dream job, he responded, "Living in the country, working on a farm."
Mission accomplished with an upcoming detour to the Hall of Fame.
2020 UW Athletic Hall of Fame
- Aaron Gibson, Football
- Carla MacLeod, Women's Hockey
- Ted Kellner, Special Service
- Jackie Zoch, Women's Rowing
- Mike Wilkinson, Men's Basketball
- John Byce, Men's Hockey and Baseball
- Tom Burke, Football
- Jessie Stomski, Women's Basketball
- Dick Bartman, Boxing
- Jeff Braun, Men's Track and Field
- Bo Ryan, Men's Basketball
