Five minutes after the game was over, and I’m still shaking. The game between Wisconsin and Arizona was insanely intense. For whatever reason, I decided to watch this game by scouting every play Arizona’s Aaron Gordon made. Since Gordon’s reputation is that he makes a bunch of plays that don’t show up in the box score, I decided I would track him from the opening tip to the closing horn of the Elite Eight match-up. Here are my notes:

The biggest thing I noticed in this game is that Gordon loves playing defense much more than he loves playing offense. When you look at his body language, he just lives for the defensive end of the floor. On offense, he set screens, he moved to the open areas of the floor, and he had a couple of crisp passes to get his teammates inside baskets. But his heart was not into playing methodical half-court offense. Conversely he just floats on defense. He makes every defensive movement with a constant spring in his step.

Gordon’s biggest contribution early in the game was pushing the ball in transition. Arizona’s game plan was to try to attack before Wisconsin was set. And that meant not waiting to get the ball to a guard to take the ball passed half court. When Gordon got the offensive rebound or picked the ball up off a deflection, he dribbled and attacked.

Obviously, most people are going to look at his stat line offensively and say he had a terrible day shooting the ball. But that isn’t really fair. I only noted four particularly egregious offensive efforts. First, early in the first half, he went around a weak screen and settled for a three at the 45 degree angle. It wasn’t a good shot because Arizona could have run the offense and got a better look.

Second, near the end of the first half, he grabbed an offensive rebound near the three point line and put up a somewhat crazy underhand scoop shot. Third, at some point in the second half, Gordon tried to play Nigel Hayes face-up out at the three point line. But Gordon swung the ball out wide as if looking for a cross-over. And Hayes simply reached out and took the ball away for a clean steal. Finally, there was a possession at 6:18 of the second half, where Gordon looked exhausted as he jumped short on a finger-roll attempt.

But other than that, most of Gordon’s looks were strong. At 12:44 of the second half he put up one of the softest floaters you will ever see, but it bounced around the rim for three seconds before rolling off. It was that kind of night for Gordon.

The real reason Gordon will want to burn the game tape is what happened on the defensive end of the floor. First, I want to talk about what happened in three straight situations starting near the 8:30 mark of the first half. If you are an Arizona fan, what you are going to say happened was that Nigel Hayes used three straight chicken wing elbows to get around Gordon, and the refs allowed it. For the second of the three incidents, clearly that would be correct. Hayes put his elbow into Gordon’s back, Gordon fell over, and Gordon was called for the foul.

But on the other two possessions, Gordon was just beat. The first was baffling. Gordon had perfect position, but Hayes somehow swung into a face-up, and beat Gordon along the baseline leading to points. There was a slight elbow when Hayes went up for the lay-up, but I have no idea how Hayes beat Gordon initially along the baseline. That was a truly spectacular play. The third incident was just a classic post move by a skilled big man, beating Gordon into the lane.

Now, given that Gordon was struggling to guard Hayes, you wondered perhaps if he would have better luck on one of Wisconsin’s other big men. And Gordon was put on Frank Kaminsky in the second half. At this point the commentators went into apologist mode. When Kaminsky straight up beat Gordon, starting from 12 feet out and backing him in for a lay-up, Marv Albert said that “Gordon was trying to avoid a second foul.” That was ludicrous.  A few possessions later, Gordon contributed his patented help defense to stop a drive, but that meant he left Kaminsky wide open for a three which Kaminsky nailed. Moments later, Kaminsky caught a simple post-pass and put it in over Gordon’s head. Gordon simply could not defend Kaminsky in this game.

And when Gordon switched to Sam Dekker, it was no better. Near the 5:07 mark of the second half, Gordon tried to stay with Dekker, but got lost on a screen, and Dekker got a lay-up.

There were two good possessions of defense that are worth mentioning. Near the 9:45 mark of the second half, Gordon had a fabulous second effort recovery to block a Nigel Hayes shot. And near the 6:30 mark of the second half, he played Kaminsky straight up in the post, and by holding his ground, he allowed Rondae Hollis-Jefferson to come over and block the Kaminsky shot.

But even without watching Hollis-Jefferson intently, I could tell Hollis-Jefferson was having a far better day than Gordon. For 37 minutes, Aaron Gordon was having the worst day of basketball in his entire life. He couldn’t make a shot. And he couldn’t guard anyone.

And then something happened. Despite everything that had gone wrong, Gordon didn’t give up. He kept fighting. And he started making plays. Near the 2:30 mark, he caught the ball in front of Kaminsky, and made a beautiful move along the baseline for a lay-up.

Then with time running down in regulation, he switched onto Traevon Jackson. Jackson has won a ton of games for the Badgers over the last two years by beating his man and getting clean looks. But Gordon forced Jackson into a very tough shot that rimmed off.

On the first defensive play of OT, Gordon was a step behind Kaminsky, but made an amazing play to dive in and steal the post feed. And with 3:34 left in OT, Gordon caught a pass on the perimeter, and buried a wide open three to tie the game. Then at the 2:58 mark in OT, Gordon caught an offensive rebound, and skied for an emphatic put-back dunk.

Gordon wasn’t perfect in OT. He switched onto Traevon Jackson another time and got beat. But Gordon showed the heart of a winner. Despite one of the worst days of his career, he kept fighting and he kept working. And even as I looked at my notes from what was an absolutely horrible afternoon, I didn’t feel like Gordon was exposed. He played a phenomenal offensive team. He played a player in Frank Kaminsky who might have just worked his way into the NBA lottery. And while Gordon will surely be criticized for this performance, if I was an NBA GM and saw a player with as much passion and energy as he has on the defensive end, I would still draft him in a heartbeat.