Nigel Hayes' Drive to Improve May Be What Wisconsin Needs to Take Final Step

MADISON, Wisconsin — Shortly after he arrived at work one morning last October, Wisconsin's Bo Ryan was summoned to the Kohl Center security desk.

"Coach," an officer told him, "you gotta see this."

As Ryan peered over his shoulder, the man rolled back footage from the 24-hour surveillance camera that monitors the Badgers' court. At one point, well past midnight, a noticeably tall figure wearing shorts and a practice jersey was spotted on the hardwood, dribbling a basketball with one hand and a tennis ball with the other.

"A dexterity drill," explained Ryan, who immediately relayed the story to his assistants, none of whom were surprised when Ryan revealed the identity of the late-night visitor:

Sophomore forward Nigel Hayes.

A key reserve on last year's Final Four squad, the 6'7" Hayes was preparing for his first season as a starter.

"He's a young man who put in an awful lot of time in the offseason on his own," Ryan told reporters a few weeks later. "He's another year older, another year wiser...another year better."

Largely because of Hayes, the Badgers are, too.

Wooden Award candidate Frank Kaminsky and versatile small forward Sam Dekker command most of the headlines for sixth-ranked Wisconsin, and rightfully so. Both players are potential NBA lottery picks enjoying standout seasons for the second consecutive year.

But the main reason the Badgers are even better than the 2013-14 squad—the reason Wisconsin has realistic hopes of winning the NCAA title—is the elevated play of Hayes, who has improved as much as any player in America.

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"I truly think he's the guy that can take us from a good team to a great team," Badgers guard Josh Gasser said. "When Nigel plays well, we tend to play well."

More times than not this season, that's been the case.

Hayes earned Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year honors by averaging 7.7 points and 2.8 rebounds last season— which ended with a 74-73 loss to Kentucky in the NCAA semifinals.

His numbers have increased dramatically now that he's a starter. Hayes ranks third on the team in scoring (12.1 points) and is second in rebounding (6.4). And after making 51 percent of his two-point attempts as a freshman, Hayes is hitting 57.2 percent of his two-pointers this year.

He's added a three-point shot to his arsenal, too. Hayes, who didn't even attempt a three-pointer last season, is 22-of-59 (37.3 percent) from beyond the arc.

"I pride myself in being intelligent not only about life, but about basketball," Hayes said. "Knowing what I did last year and realizing how much better I could be if I made a few subtle changes...it was just a matter of me putting in the work."

Labeling Hayes as "motivated" during the offseason would be an understatement.

Each weekday morning, at 4:52 a.m.—"Just because it made me feel better to say I was up before 5," he said—Hayes awoke to a rather unusual alarm. Instead of the typical beeping or buzzing sounds, Hayes programmed his cell phone to play clips from a speech he found on YouTube given by motivational speaker Eric Thomas to a group of participants in the Jordan Brand Classic high school All-Star Game.

"Basically," Hayes said, "[Thomas] tells them, 'Somewhere there's a kid thinking he should be here, and he's not. Guess what he's doing right now while I'm talking to you? He's working on getting better. He's going to pass you in college. And if he doesn't do it there, he's going to pass you in the pros if you don't keep working.'

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"There were days I didn't want to get out of bed. But once I heard that part of the speech, I popped right up."

Once at the Kohl Center, Hayes focused on improving the perceived weaknesses in his game. Some days that meant taking hundreds of shots from three-point range. Other times he zeroed in on conditioning and ball-handling skills.

Wisconsin assistant Lamont Paris recalls seeing Hayes alone on the court, putting himself through a dribbling drill while wearing specially designed goggles that prevented him from looking at the ball.

"Most of the time, when kids go to the gym on their own, they're shooting or doing something that isn't very strenuous," Paris said. "Because they're in college, they think they've made it, so they just worry about refining what they've always done instead of working on something totally new.

"That drill that Nigel was doing wasn't easy. It wasn't fun. But he was committed to getting better. It makes you shake your head. You just don't witness things like that very often anymore."

For Hayes, putting in extra work was nothing new.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, he was a standout wide receiver at Whitmer High School for most of his prep career. Each fall, to make sure he didn't regress on the basketball court, Hayes arrived to school at 6 a.m. each morning to go through a private workout on the hardwood before showering and going to class.

Like so many Ohio natives, Hayes had grown up hoping to star on the court at Ohio State, where his brother, Kenny, played football (before eventually transferring to Toledo). When Ryan and Paris arrived at the Hayes household for an official visit, a Buckeyes flag hung above the garage.

"What are we doing here," Ryan asked Paris as they pulled their rental car into the driveway.

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Paris laughed.

"Don't worry, Coach," he said. "I think we're in with him pretty good."

Indeed, while Ohio State initially showed minimal interest, Wisconsin was sold on Hayes well before he began his senior season. The Buckeyes eventually offered a scholarship at the last minute. But Hayes committed to Wisconsin on Nov. 11 and, when someone on Twitter asked him to explain why he picked the Badgers, Hayes responded: "They love me."

Indeed, the Badgers do.

And not just on the court.

Spend just a little time around Hayes, and it's easy to see why he's become one of Wisconsin's most popular players. Last season he recorded a series of videos of himself trekking through campus and asking silly questions to students. The skits were a big hit on YouTube.

"We called him Nigel Burgundy," said Dekker, referring to actor Will Ferrell's Ron Burgundy character in the movie Anchorman.

Hayes is a trivia buff who likes to look up random facts and then recite them to his teammates in the locker room. And whenever there's a team function that calls for nice attire, Hayes is the most sharp-dressed man in the room, hardly bashful about sporting a pair of turquoise pants.

"If basketball doesn't work out," he said, "I want to start my own fashion line. Either that, or become the CEO of Nike. Whichever comes first."

Hayes' most talked-about moment occurred last season, when the Badgers were mired in a three-game losing streak. Ryan, the story goes, was riding his team hard in practice, and some players felt he was going over the top. At one point, Ryan looked at Hayes and barked an order.

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"OK, Pops," Hayes said.

Ryan couldn't help but laugh. The Badgers had been referring to Hayes as "The Golden Child" because he was rarely yelled at by Ryan. This only confirmed it. "I just took it upon myself to cool him down and relax the situation," Hayes said. "Everyone was taken aback, like, 'Did he really just say that to Coach Ryan?'

"There's a time and a place for everything, but it's OK to joke around sometimes. It's not good to walk around uptight all the time. If you tried to flex your muscles all day, eventually you'd get tired and burn out. It's OK to relax and let go sometimes and then start all over again."

Hayes will be able to operate with just about any persona he wants if he continues to perform like he did in the early portions of Wisconsin's 68-61 win over Michigan State on March 1. Hayes scored three of his team's first four baskets (and assisted on the other) by going right at Spartans forward Branden Dawson, who is regarded as one of the most physical players in the country.

"No one does that [to Dawson]—at least not that physically," Paris said. "He was just dominating him. I went up to him in the huddle during the first timeout and said, 'For us to do what we want this year—if we're going to make a run—that's the Nigel Hayes we have to have."

The aggression Hayes exhibited that afternoon made it seem like he was trying to prove something, both to himself and to so many others who doubted him in the past.

The schools such as Ohio State that ignored him for years...the All-Star selection committees that didn't invite him to play in their events…the recruiting services that ranked him low—Hayes doesn't like to point fingers or call out anyone individually, but it's obvious that he's motivated by various slights in his past.

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"So many kids carry that mentality of, 'I was overlooked,'" Hayes said. "But were you really? Or are you just not as good as you think you are? A lot of kids have that problem.

"It remains to be seen which of those two sides I fall on. But when I play, I think I do a lot of good things. I may not be a guy that does a bunch of between-the-legs dunks. But I contribute in a lot of ways."

Apparently NBA scouts agree.

Hayes was hardly being discussed as a potential two-and-done prior to the season, but there's been enough buzz about him in recent weeks that Hayes, according to Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times, has "quietly conducted some exploratory work" about possibly entering this summer's NBA draft.

Of course, whether the report is accurate hardly matters at this point. With the NCAA tournament less than two weeks away, Hayes is focused on helping the Badgers reach the Final Four for the second straight season. Last year's squad appeared to be headed toward the NCAA title game before Kentucky's Aaron Harrison made a clutch, guarded three-pointer with seven seconds remaining to propel the Wildcats to a win.

The shot may have killed the Badgers' hopes last spring, but it didn't squelch their spirit.

All but one key player (Ben Brust) is back from that squad. Not many teams will enter the tournament as hungry as Wisconsin. And with a vastly improved Hayes (he scored just two points in the Kentucky game) on the court, the Badgers are even more dangerous than they were a year ago.

"It's an unspoken, unwritten thing that all of us have kept on our minds," Hayes said. "We were that close last year, literally one shot away. [Harrison] had to hit a great shot for them to win. But we were one shot away from playing for the national championship. That sits with us. We all know we have the capability.

"Every team goes, 'We want to win the national championship this year.' Some teams can actually make that happen, while other teams are just wishful thinking. With us, it's a very realistic goal. We've shown we can get there. We know we have what it takes. We know we can play well enough to make that dream come true."

Jason King covers college sports for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JasonKingBR.