Preseason expectations while we are still six months away from college basketball season? Not all of us sleep in May.
While 2019-20 was a year in which Wisconsin basketball exceeded even the wildest expectations, 2020-2021 brought the Badgers back down to earth. Before the year began, our BadgersWire team pegged a second weekend tournament appearance as the barometer of success. Despite being ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation early in the year, Wisconsin limped through the Big Ten to finish 18-13 overall and 10-10 in conference play.
Finishing four games below where they did in conference the year prior was not the way storybook final chapter for the 2020 senior class. The regular season struggles set the 9-seed Badgers up for postseason failure, as after beating North Carolina handedly in round one, eventual 2021 National Champion Baylor’s defensive pressure and athleticism were too tall of a task in round two.
While there were a number of COVID-19-related factors that made the year an unforeseen challenge, a senior-led Wisconsin team did not live up to expectations last year.
Flip everything you knew about the Badgers last year on its head for this coming year. Close your eyes and imagine a world where every time you turn on Big Ten Network you don’t hear about Wisconsin’s overwhelming experience. No older than the Chicago Bulls references, no average age graphics, and the beginning of the youth movement.
The Badgers will have a young, inexperienced core aside from the return of fifth-year guard Brad Davison. The Big Ten conference may not be quite as good at the top as we saw last year, but will be reloaded with arguably a double-digit number of squads that are NCAA Tournament-level good.
So, where should Wisconsin be expected to fit in? Davison returns his 10 points per game to go along with 3.5 rebounds, but more importantly comes back as the emotional leader. As a fifth-year player alongside a number of first and second-year guys, the Minnesota native will be a teacher for the young backcourt. That young backcourt consists of redshirt-freshman Lorne Bowman and freshman Chucky Hepburn, with sophomore Jonathan Davis leading the way on the wing.
There are more question marks than certainties when looking up and down the roster. Will Wake Forest transfer Jachobi Neath regain confidence and play a meaningful role in year one as a Badger? Can 7-foot-1 Cincinnati transfer Chris Vogt enter the year fully healthy and fill a need for Wisconsin? Can either Chucky Hepburn or Lorne Bowman (or both?) step up offensively in their freshman seasons to give Wisconsin another reliable scorer?
The most fun question of all might be surrounding a year one to year two leap for Davis. A smooth operator in the mid-range and tenacious on the glass in year one, he averaged 7 points per game and over 4 rebounds per contest as a freshman. That came on just over 6 field goal attempts per game. Wisconsin will have to replace well over 1,000 field goal attempts this year with the departure of senior leaders D’Mitrik Trice, Aleem Ford, Micah Potter, Nate Reuvers. Expect Davis’ field goal attempts per game to jump up to around 10 at the very least.
In a Big Ten conference that will once again have depth, five-star talent, and true contenders, Wisconsin appears to fit in somewhere in the middle of it all. Their identity should, as it usually does, start with defense on a team that has the potential to be versatile on that end. With stretch bigs like Ben Carlson, freshman Matthew Mors, and Tyler Wahl, the Badgers can send out lineups that won’t be afraid to switch bigs onto guards.
Offense will be hard to come by in stretches, as Wisconsin has to rely on a plethora of freshman and sophomores for the bulk of their scoring alongside Davison. With the lapses offensively, expect the Badgers to struggle against the top of the conference. In terms of the conference matching up with Wisconsin, the Badgers provide a whole different problem this year.
Instead of the Big Ten knowing exactly what the main contributors tendencies are, how to match up with them best, and who the Badgers will be going to most often as was the case last season, the offensive shot distribution will be a mystery through at least the beginning of the year.
While the 2020-2021 Badgers were similar at the start of the year compared to the end, expect a very different 2021-2022 Wisconsin team in February than you see in November. With youth comes excitement, but also growing pains and unknowns.
Is Wisconsin an expected tournament team? Probably not, but a tournament appearance feels like a fair goal. It’s felt like the Big Ten has had the middle of the conference sandwiched in between a few great teams and a few terrible teams for the past decade. Wisconsin will be firmly in the middle of that sandwich. Finishing anywhere from 8-12 in the conference is likely, but the difference in those two numbers means the difference in a tournament appearance.