“When Wisconsin called, it was like, man, in our sport that’s a biggie,” Sheffield said. “I don’t know if the people here thought of themselves at the level that most of our profession does. Our profession looks at this school and says, man, that’s a gold mine. I was interested right away.”

His only lingering question was whether the UW administration would offer the same kind of commitment that his bosses at Dayton did.

“The question was, ‘Was it important to the people here to win at the highest level?’ ” he said. “I didn’t want to go someplace where I’d be banging my head against things. Were they as serious about doing things at the same level as some of the top schools in our conference? That question had to be answered, and once it was, it was like, I loved my time at Dayton, some of the best years of my life there … but this is a pretty cool deal.”