MADISON, Wis. — Taking part in the Legends of Wisconsin Classic made him fair game for a loaded question.
Do you feel like a legend?
“In our own mind,” Trent Jackson said before teeing off in the athletic department’s annual golf fundraiser at University Ridge last week, “I think we all want to sort of feel like legends.
“But when you look at what the program did when I was playing here, it certainly wouldn’t have happened for me without guys like Danny Jones and Tim Locum.”
Jones, Jackson and Locum were the leading scorers on a gritty Wisconsin basketball team that ended a 42-year postseason drought with an appearance in the 1989 National Invitational Tournament.
The NIT turned out to be a stepping-stone, an awakening for a long dormant program.
“We broke the curse of no postseason play,” Jackson likes to say.
Ten years after that first NIT bid, the Badgers went on a run of 19 straight trips to the Big Dance.
Jackson feels a strong sense of accomplishment knowing he was on the ground floor for it all.
A feeling that will be heightened in September when he goes into the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.
“I was driving down to Chicago with my wife,” he said, “and I had to pull over.”
Jackson, a two-time team MVP, had just fielded a call informing him of his induction.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I thought they were kidding.”
He even playfully scolded the caller, “Don’t be playing with my emotions.”
That’s how much this honor means to the 52-year-old Jackson, who works for the chancellor’s office as the senior director of development for the division of diversity.
• • • •
While it was completely out of his hands as an ESPN analyst, Dick Vitale sought a fairer and more equitable outcome to what started out as a major college basketball mismatch at the UW Field House.
No. 2-ranked Indiana, coached by Bob Knight, was 20-2, 11-1 in the Big Ten.
By sharp contrast, Wisconsin, coached by Steve Yoder, was 11-14, 1-11 in the conference.
The Hoosiers had won 14 straight over the Badgers in a one-sided series. That included a 38-point beatdown (103-65) earlier during the 1986-87 season at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.
Turning to his play-by-play partner, Mike Patrick, Vitale opined, “You hate to say it because we really can’t root for anyone, Mike, but these kids don’t deserve to lose here today.”
Vitale was talking about Yoder’s overmatched but scrappy “kids” who refused to be intimidated.
“They sure don’t,” Patrick chimed in. “If it goes to another overtime, I’ll vote for calling it a tie. Matter of fact, I’ll tell you right now, I’ll get up and leave.”
Unable to resist the lob over the center of the plate, Vitale countered excitedly, “I’ll do play-by-play and analyze. I’ve always wanted to do a solo act.”
Vitale and Patrick could be excused for sounding a little punchy.
The Badgers and the Hoosiers were in the midst of a third overtime in a marathon tug-of-war that didn’t start until 8 p.m., an angry point of contention with Knight during a post-game rant.
“Where’s the priorities?” he blustered.
As upset as Knight was with TV dictating such a late tipoff (9 p.m. EST), he was equally frustrated by his team’s inability to put away the Badgers who kept fighting back against the Hoosiers.
Indiana’s All-American guard Steve Alford, who would be named the MVP in the Big Ten, missed potential game-winning shots at the end of regulation and the first and second overtimes.
With a little over three minutes left in the third overtime, Jackson, then a UW sophomore, grabbed a long rebound and drove the ball right at Alford scoring off the glass to give the Badgers the lead, 81-79.
“Tremendous change of direction by Jackson,” Vitale bellowed. “He’s got great quickness. He’s an explosive kind of scorer. He’s had some big days here at Wisconsin.”
Like his 26 points at Ohio State. He was 7-of-11 on 3-pointers.
Like his 24 points against Michigan. He also had a career-high six steals.
In ’87, Jackson scored in double figures (18.7) in each of the final 14 Big Ten games.
But the only thing in his mind during the third overtime against Indiana was finishing.
When Knight tried to surprise Wisconsin with a rare zone, Jackson answered by nailing a clutch 3-pointer to once again give the Badgers the lead, 83-82, with 1 minutes and 39 seconds left.
“Trent Jackson buries a big one,” Patrick roared, “and Wisconsin is back ahead.
“Do you believe this?”
Alas, the Badgers couldn’t hold on. Indiana’s Joe Hillman airballed a shot that was rebounded by Dean Garrett and his put-back basket allowed the Hoosiers to escape with a pulsating 86-85 win.
That talented Indiana team wound up losing a couple of times at Purdue and Illinois late in the Big Ten season before going on a seven-game winning streak culminating with Keith Smart’s memorable jumper that beat Syracuse in the national championship game at the Louisiana Superdome.
As for Jackson and his returning Badgers teammates, they used that heartbreaking loss to the Hoosiers, and many others they suffered that year, to bolster their confidence and grow.
Jackson surely did during the triple-overtime.
“I really felt like I belonged then,” he said, “just being on the same court with Alford.”
Jackson ended up with 18 points (7-of-10 from the field) joining three of his teammates in double-figures. J.J. Weber and Mike Heineman had 20 each. Rod Ripley had 10. Meanwhile, it was a very uncharacteristic night for Alford who made only four of 19 shots and finished with 13 points.
“When I held my own (against Alford),” Jackson reiterated, “it was like, ‘OK, I belong here.”‘
During the mid to late ’80s, the Big Ten had its share of scorers. Alford and Indiana’s Jay Edwards. Ohio State’s Dennis Hopson. Michigan’s Glen Rice and Gary Grant. Purdue’s Troy Lewis. Iowa’s Roy Marble and B.J. Armstrong. Illinois’ Ken Norman.
In the end, Jackson didn’t have to take a backseat.
It didn’t come as a surprise, either, to anyone at Bolingbrook (Illinois) High School. A four-year starter, Jackson was the all-time leader in points, rebounds and assists. As a junior, he scored a career-high 47 in a game that he dedicated to Simeon’s Ben Wilson who was fatally shot earlier that day.
Wilson was the No. 1 high school prospect in the country. He was 17.
“We were very close, we talked all the time,” Jackson said. “The 47 were in his honor.”
In 2013, Bolingbrook retired Jackson’s No. 32 jersey during a halftime ceremony at the school.
“A lot of people,” he told the crowd, “had a hand in lifting that jersey up to the rafters.”
Jackson, who also wore No. 32 with the Badgers, would likely say the same about his Hall of Fame career at Wisconsin. There will be many to thank at the induction ceremony.
“Basketball was the vehicle to get here, but my education is the reason why I’m standing here talking to you today,” Jackson said. “I had a chance to go to Duke. I had a chance to go to Michigan. But I chose here and I look back and say, ‘This was the right decision for me.'”
Overcoming an ankle injury that sidelined him 14 games as a freshman, Jackson took the attitude, “There was nothing that was going to stop me once I got back out there playing again.”
He proved to be made of the right stuff. The stuff of legends.