Wisconsin basketball has been feeling the love during this offseason. The hype surrounding the 2020-21 season has manifested itself in early rankings that see the Badgers as a top ten team. The latest ranking to show UW the respect that comes with returning five of your top six leading scorers was done by CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein.
Rothstein also happens to be the originator of the “Greg Gard, silent assassin” t-shirts that Nate Reuvers and other Badgers wore towards the end of the season in postgame interviews. The CBS Sports insider ranks the Badgers as the ninth-best team in the country in his “Early Rothstein 45 for 2021.”
Contrary to other early expert rankings, instead of having UW as the top Big Ten team Rothstein sees the Badgers as the third best team in the Big Ten after Iowa and Michigan State respectively. In our BadgersWire way-too-early preseason rankings, we also saw Iowa, Michigan State, and the Badgers as the clear top three, albeit in a different order.
For Iowa, a large portion of their preseason hype comes with the assumption that reigning Big Ten Player of the Year Luka Garza will return to school instead of heading to the NBA draft. While we are still in the way-too-early phase of rankings, expect Wisconsin to be near the top of any preseason predictions both nationally and in the Big Ten conference.