Stop if you’ve heard this before: There’s a good chance senior guard Traevon Jackson will play next game. However, this could finally be his return.
Jackson (foot) is officially listed as a game-time decision for the top-seeded Badgers (33-3) as they prepare to take on athletic No. 4-seed North Carolina (26-11) in a Sweet 16 matchup Thursday night in Los Angeles.
Jackson practiced Wednesday and told reporters he will play Thursday with no limitations.
“Trae’s looking more and more comfortable,” said senior forward Frank Kaminsky. “The jumpshot is a little different. He’s the kind of guy that’s been working hard to get back into the position where he can play again, and it’s nice to see him back out on the court and enjoying it.”
There have been plenty of theorized return dates for Jackson. He claimed he was going to play March 1 on Senior Day against Michigan State then watched the game in street clothes. Days later, head coach Bo Ryan shot down any possibility of the guard playing in the Big Ten Tournament. This made the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend a logical choice, especially when Jackson started practicing the Monday before the opening round. No dice.
There’s a very good chance this could be it, even if Jackson only plays limited minutes while sophomore guard Bronson Koenig sits in the driver’s seat.
Any added depth will be a godsend for the Badgers, especially against a team with as deep a frontcourt as North Carolina.
At full health, the Tar Heels rotate seven players in the frontcourt that were four or five-star recruits out of high school. That doesn’t mean they are more talented than Wisconsin, but it is indicative of the wall of athleticism awaiting the Badgers.
The area where the Tar Heels shine the most, offensive rebounding, is where Wisconsin could be best equipped to limit them. UNC ranks eighth in the country in offensive rebounding rate, grabbing 38.7 percent of its misses according to teamrankings.com. Meanwhile, Wisconsin grabs 78.5 percent of its opponents’ misses, which comes in at third in the country and is no accident.
“If you give up only one shot, you think your points per possession defensively are going to turn out to be pretty good? Absolutely,” Ryan said. “So, yes, we do work on that. We keep track. If we don’t get 10 or more points every 10 possessions, we run [in practice].”
Unfortunately for North Carolina, it could be without its most efficient offensive rebounder. Like Jackson, UNC sophomore center Kennedy Meeks is a game-time decision, but is much less likely to play. Meeks sprained his knee in the Tar Heels’ Round of 32 game against Arkansas. UNC head coach Roy Williams said on his Monday radio show, “It’s not good … I don’t think we’ll have him.”
Meeks leads his team in offensive rebounding rate at 12.9 percent, and his 290-pound frame gives him the kind of girth that could make Kaminsky uncomfortable.
Even if Meeks is out, the Tar Heels possess a strong weapon in junior guard Marcus Paige, whose outside shooting could give Wisconsin trouble. Guards have frequently been able to hang 20-plus points on the Badgers by using ball screens to neutralize UW’s top perimeter defender, redshirt senior guard Josh Gasser.
“Well, I think with Gasser and Bronson both, they’re really good players,” Williams said in a press conference Wednesday. “They can hurt you offensively or defensively. But that’s what Marcus is. He’s a really good basketball player, too. I never think it’s imperative that one guy has got to do everything. North Carolina’s got to come to play.”
