2025-26 Big Ten basketball season preview: Wisconsin Badgers

With the start of college basketball season in early November, Inside the Hall is taking a team-by-team look at the Big Ten and a player-by-player look at IU basketball’s roster over the next two months.

Today, our team previews continue with Wisconsin.

Previously: Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota, Northwestern, Washington, Nebraska, Maryland, Iowa

Greg Gard’s success in Madison continued last winter with a 27-win campaign that ended with a narrow 91-89 NCAA tournament second-round loss to BYU.

Led by breakout star John Tonje, Wisconsin won 13 Big Ten games and finished No. 12 in the final KenPom.com rankings.

Tonje graduated last spring, as did Steven Crowl and Max Klesmit but Wisconsin should be right back in the hunt in the Big Ten in Gard’s 11th season in Madison.

The Badgers return an exciting duo – John Blackwell and Nolan Winter – and have added some key transfer portal pieces.

The 6-foot-4 Blackwell broke out last season and tested the NBA draft waters before deciding to return for his junior season. Under-recruited out of high school, Blackwell averaged 15.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and shot 45.1 percent from the field last season. If his 3-point shot improves – he shot 32.2 percent last season on triples – he has All-Big Ten first team potential.

The 7-foot, 235-pound Winter, also a junior, will be one of the Big Ten’s best frontcourt players. Winter made 71.5 percent of his 2s last season and 35.8 percent of his 3s on 95 attempts. That efficiency at the rim, coupled with his ability to stretch the floor, makes him one of the toughest covers in the conference. As a sophomore, Winter averaged 9.4 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 21.1 minutes per game. His minutes – and his production – should grow in his third season.

Three transfer portal additions will likely round out the Badger starting five.

Point guard Nick Boyd arrives from San Diego State to play alongside Blackwell. The 6-foot-3 senior began his career at FAU, where he was the starter on the 2022-23 Final Four team under Dusty May. Now 24 years old, Boyd is a reliable 3-point shooter and distributor. Last season for the Aztecs, he averaged 13.4 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.9 assists and a steal in 29.9 minutes per game while shooting 35.1 percent on 3s.

Virginia transfer Andrew Rohde, a Wisconsin native, arrives on the wing after stops at St. Thomas and Virginia. Rohde has excellent size at 6-foot-6 and shot 41.3 percent on 3s last season for the Cavaliers. He averaged a solid line of 9.3 points, 4.3 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 30.9 minutes per game.

Joining Winter up front will be Portland transfer Austin Rapp, a 6-foot-10 sophomore. Rapp will provide rim protection – 1.5 blocked shots per game last season – along with 3-point shooting. Rapp attempted 7.6 3-pointers per game last season and shot 35.2 percent from deep. He made 83 triples as a freshman.

Transfer portal addition Braeden Carrington, who began his career at Minnesota before transferring to Tulsa, is back in the Big Ten for his final season. At 6-foot-5, Carrington will provide experience off the bench. Carrington made 19 starts last season at Tulsa and averaged 7.4 points and 4.8 rebounds in 26.8 minutes per game.

Redshirt sophomore Jack Janicki, a former walk-on, is now on scholarship after breaking into the rotation last season. The 6-foot-5 Janicki, a Minnesota native, scored 11 points in 17 minutes in Wisconsin’s upset win at Purdue last season. He played double-figure minutes regularly late last season and should be one of the first Badgers off the bench.

The Badgers also welcome 6-foot-3 freshman guard Zach Kinziger, the No. 108 player in the final 247Sports Composite rankings for the 2025 class. He was Wisconsin’s Mr. Basketball last season.

Other names to know: Temple transfer Elijah Gray and freshmen Hayden Jones, Will Garlock and Aleksas Bieliauskas.

The 6-foot-9 Gray averaged nine points and 3.8 rebounds in 25 games for the Owls last season and will provide depth behind Rapp and Winter.

Jones, a 6-foot-6 native of New Zealand, averaged a team-best 14.6 points in the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup and has professional experience.

Garlock, a 7-footer from Middleton, Wisconsin, was a 3-star prospect in the 2025 class. He is a name to know for the future if he sticks in the system and develops like the Badger big men of the past.

And the 6-foot-10 Bieliausakas also has professional experience in Lithuania in the country’s top professional league.

Much like last season, Wisconsin should boast a high-octane offense featuring a lot of 3-pointers while limiting mistakes. Gard has opened things up for the Badgers’ offense in recent seasons and is playing a style that is far more fun to watch than Bo Ryan’s teams in Madison.

Bottom line: At No. 29 in Bart Torvik’s projections for the 2025-26 season, Wisconsin should be solidly in the NCAA tournament next March. The Badgers will be picked to finish in the top half of the Big Ten and have one of the league’s best duos in Blackwell and Winter. Whether Wisconsin can push for a top three or four finish in the league will largely depend on the efficiency of Blackwell, Winter taking a step forward in his development, the leadership Boyd provides at point guard and the 3-point shooting of Rohde and Rapp.

Quotable: “They’ve worked. They’ve come in. It’s a pretty talented group, and it’s just a matter of continuing to refine some things. In the summer, a lot of times, it’s about experimenting, so we’re tinkering with different things. We’ve had to kick them out of the gym at times because they really like to play. I think we’ve got good depth. I think we’ve got size, and the experience that the transfers have brought has been pretty obvious.” – Gard to reporters in mid-July.

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