Wisconsin Badgers have increased their focus on in-state recruiting in the portal era

MADISON, Wis. - The creation of the transfer portal and the bidding war that experienced talent has generated has put coaches into an era where developmental years in college basketball are no longer acceptable.

The University of Wisconsin has joined the movement to rebuild rosters quickly through the portal and is coming off three successful years of finding experienced talent on the open market, but the Badgers still want the foundation of their roster to be high school recruits.

Any thoughts to the contrary must have missed assistant coach Sharif Chambliss, leaving a late-season practice early to make sure he could see Wisconsin Lutheran 2027 prospect Kager Knueppel in person.

"Coach Gard wants the focus on high school players in the state," Wisconsin Director of Recruiting and Scouting Isaac Wodajo said last month. "We still have the Minnesota pipeline, as well. The talent in this state (in 2027) is phenomenal."

A thread to keep you up to date with all the incoming and outgoing roster movement of Wisconsin #Badgers basketball. https://t.co/gxHetizyVB
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One of the unintended consequences of the transfer portal has been the devaluing of high school recruiting. All the experienced talent available in the transfer portal, at the right price, has put power-conference basketball programs in win-now mode, and history shows it's easier to win with seniors and experience than with freshmen.

It also doesn’t hurt that high school players are more affordable than transfer portal players.
"Unless they are A.J. Dybantsa or Cam Boozer ... if you're going to invest a lot of money in your freshmen, the likelihood that they are going to move the needle for you is pretty slim," head coach Greg Gard told Mike Heller on the podcast I Love Mondays. "It doesn't make good business sense to stick a lot of money into freshmen because they can't help you right out of the gate.

"Then there's always the option that they have to leave. You stick a lot of money into them, they don't play, and then they leave anyway. (It's) being very strategic with the freshmen we recruit."

The desire to stretch their dollars has led Wisconsin to aggressively recruit in-state players in the portal era. When the Badgers announced DePere guard Zach Kinziger and Middleton center Will Garlock in their 2025 signing class, the duo was the first in-state players to sign with the program since La Crosse’s Johnny Davis and Jordan Davis in 2019.

Last November, the Badgers signed Delafield St. John's Academy guard LaTrevion Fenderson, and recently made a late scholarship offer to Wisconsin Lutheran guard Zavier Zens, who is currently on campus for an official visit.

The Badgers have eight known offers out to prospects in the 2027 class that focus solely on their two pipelines, five in Wisconsin and three in Minnesota.

It's a smart move on two fronts. Wisconsin has a lot to sell those players with being the best program in the area over the last decade: eight 20-win seasons, a pair of conference titles, and eight NCAA Tournament appearances.

The second is the affordability. Gard opened some eyes when he said the Badgers don't rank in the top half of the Big Ten in spending on player acquisition and retention. Wisconsin’s constricted budget to fill out its 15-player roster likely played a role in freshman forward Aleksas Bieliauskas entering the transfer portal after starting the final 28 games of the season and averaging 4.9 points and 4.4 rebounds.

Of the 10 non-transfers on Wisconsin's roster last season, six came from either Wisconsin or Minnesota.

"It comes down to the strategy of putting together a roster," Gard said. "It's not just slap together the best players you can get because financially it won't work. If you are going to excessively overspend on one or two guys, what your ability to surround them with diminishes immensely."

While massive roster overhauls are new for the Badgers, rebuilding an entire lineup is commonplace for Wodajo. Among his many stops before being hired as the program's director of recruiting and scouting in June 2024, Wodajo spent four seasons at Wabash Valley Junior College in Mount Carmel, Illinois, the last as the school's head coach, where it was commonplace to have a different roster every season.

With Wisconsin heading into a second straight season bringing in at least seven new players, massive turnover is no longer the exception, which is why recruiting in-state players is a good foundation to build on.

"We had to bring in eight, nine, 10 guys to a roster every year in junior college," Wodajo said. "Some guys are going to have weaknesses that you need to hide and strengths that you need to explore more. Having that perspective and balance of knowing you're going to have some guys who aren't going to work out and guys who are going to leave the program.

"It's OK. It's fine. You're not going to hit on every single transfer, and that's where people get lost because we missed on a guy."