Wisconsin basketball stepped on the Kohl Center court on Wednesday for the first action of the 2024-25 season, albeit in an unofficial capacity.
The Badgers faced UW-River Falls in a preseason scrimmage. The score, which doesn’t count, was 78-62 in favor of Wisconsin.
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Transfer guard John Tonje led the way for the Badgers with 15 points, while center Steven Crowl and forward Carter Gilmore added 14 and nine, respectively.
The contest got tight in the second half, with UW-River Falls cutting the Badgers lead to just two points with 12:55 remaining. Wisconsin would pull away in the end, though its performance was far from dominant.
There aren’t many big-picture takeaways from the performance of Greg Gard’s team in its first unofficial game action. The group, with new faces at nearly every position, will need some time to gel and find on-court rhythm.
One thing we can read into from the contest, however, is the Badgers’ initial starting lineup and early rotation.
Wisconsin entered the scrimmage as follows:
G: John Blackwell
G: Max Klesmit
G: John Tonje (transfer)
F: Nolan Winter
C: Steven Crowl
Gard’s first two players off the bench were F Markus Ilver and G Kamari McGee for Winter and Tonje, respectively. He proceeded to quickly rotate after that pair, using as many as 10 total players in the first 12 minutes of the exhibition.
Both the general rotation and starting lineup point to a main theme: the Badgers are deep throughout the lineup.
Blackwell, Klesmit and Crowl are easy write-ins to the nightly starting five. Tonje and Winter, meanwhile, are battling among a larger group that also includes veterans Carter Gilmore and Kamari McGee, top freshman Daniel Freitag, transfer forward Xavier Amos and transfer guard Camren Hunter. That isn’t even mentioning Ilver, who could earn a role.
Where the 2024-25 Badgers lack in top-end star power after the offseason departures of Chucky Hepburn and A.J. Storr they excels in depth of contributors. The busy battle for the two spots alongside Blackwell, Klesmit and Crowl shows that reality.
Gard is now tasked with finding a rotation that maximizes depth that could possibly reach 11 spots. That effort will begin on Monday, Nov. 4 when the Badgers officially open their 2024-25 season against Holy Cross at the Kohl Center.
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