Basketball season is officially here. Well, not officially. But, it’s here. The Wisconsin Badgers are taking on the Oklahoma Sooners on Friday in an exhibition game at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. on Big Ten Plus.
Wisconsin enters the season with a brand new team, bringing in five transfers and four freshmen to form yet another deep team.
Looking for experience in the transfer portal, the Badgers brought in Nick Boyd, who should increase the tempo of the offense, wing Andrew Rohde, who provides high-end shooting and underrated passing, and forward Austin Rapp, who can stretch the floor as a four.
Then, to supplant the bench, the team added guard Braeden Carrington, who has plenty of experience in the Big Ten after starting his career at Minnesota, and Elijah Gray, who provides size and some stretch ability as a four.
Wisconsin’s freshman class has impressed early on, as the Badgers brought in two in-state recruits (Zach Kinziger and Will Garlock) and two international recruits (Hayden Jones and Aleksas Bieliauskas. All four are in contention for rotational minutes to start the season.
Then, there’s the returners. Wisconsin was able to retain John Blackwell and Nolan Winter, who are the main building blocks on the team, and also kept valuable bench piece Jack Janicki.
Those pieces should make up this year’s rotation for a deep Badgers squad.
On the flip side, Wisconsin is facing an Oklahoma team that doesn’t have its top six scorers from a season ago, including lottery pick Jeremiah Fears. That led them to be heavy players in both the freshman class and the transfer portal to retool a roster that went 20-14 and made the NCAA Tournament a year ago.
Wisconsin will be in Milwaukee later this year when they host the Villanova Wildcats at the Fiserv Forum in a non-conference bout in December. But first, they’ll give the fans a glimpse of what’s to come with their exhibition game against Oklahoma on Friday.
Stay tuned, as our exhibition game thread is officially open!
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