Travis Diener

“You boys ready to win some money?”

This week, our Moonlighter has a basketball career that has taken him from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, around the world, and back again. Travis Diener grew up in Wisconsin and went to Marquette University where he and the Golden Eagles went all the way to the Final Four. For most, taking your home-state college to the Final Four would be a great ending to a Cinderella story. But for this Moonlighter, that was just another step in his journey. Travis Diener has played professional basketball for more than a decade between the NBA and Europe, but one of the biggest shots of his career came in a nearly empty arena.

Going to Marquette was a dream for a lot of Wisconsin guys. Travis Diener arrived at Marquette during a golden age of the Golden Eagles. Coach Tom Crean had an amazing lineup in 2002 that included Dwayne Wade and Steve Novak. Diener’s role as the point guard on that Final Four team allowed him to distribute to 2 fellow future NBA players. As the point guard, Diener helped lead the Golden Eagles to the 2003 Final Four by starting all 33 games and averaging almost 12 points and 5.6 assists per game. Following the tough ending to that 2003 run, Diener continued to improve. He was an All-Conference player for the Golden Eagles during his junior and senior seasons and was drafted in the second round of the 2005 NBA draft.

Though Travis Diener played with some great talents in college, he joined a loaded Orlando roster with Grant Hill, Dwight Howard, and Steve Francis. Diener went from watching some of these stars on TV to then playing alongside them. Having to defend Allen Iverson was his welcome to the NBA moment. He never backed down and learned to move from fan to competitor right away. After 5 years in the NBA with Orlando, Indiana, and Portland, he took his talents to Europe. He has spent most of the last decade playing for Dinamo Sassari and Vanoli Cremona. In those eight seasons, he is a two-time all-star and has won two Italian Cups. When he initially retired in 2014, Dinamo retired his #12 jersey.

Travis Diener went back to Wisconsin in 2014 and became the Director of Player Personnel for Marquette. He continued to stay in shape and didn’t get far from the game, so when an opportunity to return to Italy came in 2017, Diener was ready to get back on the court and compete. He feels the last three seasons have been some of the best basketball of his career.

However, American basketball fans are probably more familiar with Diener and a different group of Golden Eagles. In the last three years, Diener and a team of mostly Marquette alums, appropriately named the Golden Eagles, have competed in The Basketball Tournament. This past July it was one of the few sporting events that actually took place due to the pandemic. After coming up just short in 2018 and 2019, the Golden Eagles made it the 2020 TBT championship game. Diener scored his only bucket of the title game to seal the victory. There have been plenty of big games for this Moonlighter, but hitting a 3 (and calling his shot!) to win a million bucks is a flat out great story.

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