CITY SNICKER
Badgers’ Hayes may be fun-loving and socially active, but he hates NYC
DESPITE going to school in Madison, Wis., Nigel Hayes isn’t very enamored with the cold weather still lingering in New York City. In fact, Hayes isn’t a big fan of the city at all, something the Knicks might have to consider if they have a chance to select the Badgers senior forward from Toledo, Ohio.
“I don’t really like New York,” Hayes said Thursday at Madison Square Garden, where the eighth-seeded Badgers (27-9) will face fourth-seeded Florida (26-8) in an East Region semifinal Friday night. “It’s too big; it’s dirty; there’s trash everywhere; there’s too many people; and it’s cold right now. It’s nice to look at in the movies and stuff, but I’ve had my share of it. I’m just trying to come here and win some basketball games.”
Asked if he would change his tune if he were drafted by the Knicks, Hayes barely softened.
“You’d have no choice,” he said. “It’s just something you’d have to live with it.”
That’s too bad because Hayes and his outspoken and engaging personality would be good for the rigid Knicks. Case in point, Hayes conducted his lockerroom interview session Thursday while holding junior guard Matt Ferris in a tight headlock. Try as he might to escape Hayes’ grasp, Ferris couldn’t budge with an arm locked around his chin. It looked like an MMA fighter going for a rear-naked choke.
“This is rear- naked love,” Hayes said. “Ferris is one of my favorite teammates. This is my guy. He’s the ugliest guy on the team. I’m trying to rub off some of my good looks on him. It probably won’t help.”
Ferris didn’t seem to mind being a prop.
“He’s kind of a bully,” Ferris said. “He’s got me under his wing, figuratively and literally. You can’t ask for a better senior.”
The Badgers couldn’t ask for a better player. Wisconsin reached the Sweet 16 by upsetting defending champion and topseeded Villanova 65-62 in Buffalo last weekend. Hayes made the decisive basket after a spin move along the baseline for a layup. It’s something he’s been doing for the last four years. The 6-foot-8 forward leads all active players with 166 career NCAA points and has averaged 17. 5 points and 9.0 rebounds during this year’s tournament.
He’s also in charge of keeping things loose, hence the prolonged headlock. It’s something he learned from his predecessors at Wisconsin, which has won 13 NCAA Tournament games over the last four seasons, the most of any team in the country.
“We try to have as much fun as we can still knowing we have a goal and objective at hand,” Hayes said. “We try to do our best to balance it. We have some seniors who have been pretty deep in this tournament a couple of times so we know the tricks of the trade.”
The Badgers have reached the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight season and made the Final Four in 2014 and 2015 where they lost the championship game to Duke in Indianapolis. With this being his final run at a national title, Hayes has only one thing in mind.
“I’ve done everything else in this tournament you’re able to do except hold the trophy and that’s my main focus,” he said.
Hayes wants it known that he’s more than a basketball player. The business finance major is socially active on Twitter, speaking out on a number of topics, including the need for college athletes to be paid.
“The people that make the money get paid for it,” he said. “That seems to hold true for the rest of the country except for college athletics, which generates billions of dollars. I don’t know why there’s a disconnection between the rest of the country and college athletics.”
Hayes will earn plenty of money if he makes it to the NBA. He figures to be a mid-to-late second-round pick, though his stock could improve with a good showing this weekend. Maybe then he’ll feel better about our cold, dirty, overcrowded
city.