“I’m going to be a Badger for life,” Wisconsin third team All-American guard John Blackwell said last offseason. “I want to be remembered as a legend here. I want to be remembered as a guy who stuck around.”
A year removed from that quote, Blackwell said goodbye to Wisconsin, announcing on Monday that he will enter the NCAA transfer portal while testing NBA draft waters.
In his junior season, Blackwell improved in almost all categories. He averaged 19.1 points per game this season, up from his 15.8 last year, while improving his 3-point percentage by over six percentage points to 38.9%. Throughout the season, transfer guard Nick Boyd took on the role as Wisconsin’s leading ballhandler, but Blackwell still accumulated five games in which he scored 30 or more points, while finishing with at least 20 points in 16 games.
After his sustained success, why the change of heart? Maybe back-to-back gut-wrenching defeats in the NCAA Tournament left a bad taste in his mouth? Maybe Blackwell thinks he must leave Wisconsin in order to fulfill his desire of winning a national championship? Maybe the money he could be earning elsewhere — potentially $4 million or more — was simply too good of an offer to pass on? Maybe it's a combination of the three?
The situation leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of Wisconsin fans, and is an indication of the current place Wisconsin’s basketball program finds itself in during a turbulent era in college athletics.
“It's hard for me to accept that we can't hold people down that literally in interviews last year said Wisconsin's their home and they want to stay here,” UW-Madison freshman Carter Bosanec told the Daily Cardinal.
Blackwell, a cornerstone player for Wisconsin over the course of multiple years, was part of a dying breed of college basketball players that have grown from a bench contributor to team leader all at the same school. The fact that a player like him is leaving is a sign that Wisconsin may not have the NIL resources that top schools offer.
“From a player's perspective, a lot of these players are here so that they can develop and step to the next level,” Bosanec said. “So if they are seeing that they can make this much money while developing, I would, if I was them.”
Regardless of Blackwell's reason for departing Madison, Wisconsin must march on and retool their roster in the offseason. Blackwell’s departure, along with the graduations of Nick Boyd, Andrew Rohde and Braeden Carrington, leave the Badgers with eight open roster positions to fill, including their three starting guards from last season.
This level of roster turnover raises a lot of intrigue and questions surrounding the team heading into next season.
Will Wisconsin retain Nolan Winter?
Losing Blackwell to the portal is bad enough. Losing Nolan Winter alongside him would mark a catastrophe for Wisconsin’s 2026-27 roster outlook.
Winter, who led the Badgers in rebounds and was Wisconsin’s third-leading scorer, arrived at Wisconsin in the 2023-24 season and has been a key contributor each of the past two years. He’s one of the few remaining homegrown talents for the Badgers and possesses plenty of pride for Wisconsin’s program.
“I know what it means for us to wear Wisconsin across our chest,” Winter said through tears following an overtime loss to Villanova during the regular season.
Luckily for the Badgers, it seems more likely than not that he will be back in Madison for his senior season. Following Wisconsin’s loss to High Point in the NCAA Tournament, Winter told reporters he was trying to “live minute-by-minute soak this all in” when asked about his future, but “obviously I want to be back here.”
While this is a good sign and fans should rightfully be optimistic, you can never be too comfortable in the current landscape. Blackwell’s statements from last season, and his current situation, is a prime example.
The Badgers have already lost four of their top six leading scorers from the 2025-26 season, and losing Winter would leave Wisconsin without each of its top four scorers from this past year. Simply put, the Badgers cannot afford to let that happen.
Who will be Greg Gard’s next transfer portal gem?
Head coach Greg Gard deserves his flowers for the work he’s done these past few offseasons in the transfer portal. Bringing in AJ Storr, John Tonje and Boyd in three consecutive years is truly sensational work. If Gard can find another diamond in the rough this offseason, the Badgers could get right back to business.
Tonje and Boyd were one in the same in that they were dynamic guards entering their final year of eligibility. Tonje became an instant program legend, earning unanimous first team All-Big Ten and second team All-American honors. He also set program records for free throws made (231) and free throw percentage (.909).
Boyd had massive positive ramifications on the offense last season as well, but with a different style than Tonje. His ability to run the offense with efficiency and speed led to incredible production, and he became the first Badger to average more than 20 points per game in a season in more than 30 years.
Storr came in as a sophomore and was named second team All-Big Ten, leading the team in points scored in 2023-24. He transferred to Kansas the ensuing offseason for a reported $1 million in NIL money.
Gard and the Badgers have a tendency to mainly target older players in the transfer portal, and one player to keep an eye on is Ohio State forward Devin Royal. The rising senior listed at 6-foot-6 would bring size, experience and scoring, having averaged 13.7 points and 5.7 rebounds last season.
If they do bring in players with multiple years of eligibility remaining, one name to watch is guard Nick Janowski. A Pewaukee native, Janowski just finished his freshman season at St. Thomas (MN) and was named first team All-Summit League. He averaged 16.1 points per game and was good on 49.5% of his field goals last season, including 33.9% from 3. With Wisconsin already having a St. Thomas' connection with Rohde, who played for the Tommies during the 2022-23 season, Janowski could be a great option to fill one of those vacant guard positions for the Badgers.
Whoever they do end up signing, Gard’s recent track record with the transfer portal should be an indication that at least one of the new players will fit in very nicely in Madison.
How should next season’s roster be constructed?
One of the more intriguing aspects of this offseason is the mountainous range of possibilities for how next year’s team can be built. The Badgers will be returning Austin Rapp and Jack Janicki next season, both of whom could take on much larger roles for the team.
Rapp only got better as the season progressed, and his playing time steadily increased throughout the year. He’s bound to be a key member of the team next year, especially after Aleksas Bielauskas announced he’s entering the transfer portal.
The pairing of Rapp and Bielauskas helped the team stay in rhythm when Winter was out with an injury last season, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if Gard and general manager Marc VandeWetting attempt to bring in a player who can play a similar role.
Janicki, who was hindered by a wrist injury this year, has already made a name for himself due to his defensive tenacity, and the door is now open for him to become a contributor offensively. He told reporters he didn’t do much this past season while sitting behind “the best backcourt in the country,” but he wants to “step up” the way some of those guys did this year.
Outside of Janicki and Rapp, Owen Foxwell, a 22-year old guard who played pro ball in the Australian NBL last season, is a newcomer who looks to contribute immediately next season. He is slated to be Boyd’s replacement at guard and should mesh nicely with the offense, operating as a traditional point guard as well as playing sound defense. Expect to see him putting up lots of 3’s off the pick-and-roll.
Much of the rest of the roster construction will depend on the archetype of players Gard and company bring in and the offense they want to run, one that has been among the nation’s best and consistently evolving over the last few seasons. After the success they had with Boyd last year, it’s hard to imagine Wisconsin wouldn’t like to try and replicate that same level of efficiency and fluidity with another point guard, whether that’s Foxwell or with a transfer.
Can UW Athletics keep pace in the modern era?
UW Athletics finds themselves in a precarious position.
According to Gard, the Badgers’ NIL budget has grown “20 fold” since its inception in 2021. That said, Wisconsin still does not fall in the top half of the NCAA in terms of its budget. This makes it ever more difficult to retain premier players like Blackwell and acquire top players in the portal.
In today’s day and age of college sports — especially basketball and football — top programs need to spend like they’re top programs. It’s difficult to compete for championships abiding by a moneyball philosophy.
Think back to the Badgers’ back-to-back Final Four runs in 2014 and 2015 and imagine how different it could have looked with NIL. If other schools were offering millions of dollars to Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker after that first run, it’s not hard to imagine the duo transferring elsewhere. And given the athletics department’s pocket-pinching tendencies, that possibility seems more like a probability.
Unfortunately, the solution is not as simple as investing more money into NIL. Wisconsin athletics faces significant debt due to revenue losses suffered during the pandemic as well as debt from athletics facilities improvements reported at $130 million as of June 2025.
On top of that, Wisconsin has to split its NIL budget among 23 programs, which is more than many other universities. Although men’s basketball does get a sizable piece of that pie, they have the disadvantage of sharing its NIL budget with football.
The same can be said for most other premier programs, but Big East schools like Marquette and St. John’s, who don’t have football teams, are able to reap the rewards of an NIL budget almost solely dedicated to basketball.
As the NIL arms race continues to escalate, Wisconsin athletics finds itself struggling to keep up. The effectiveness of its efforts to alleviate debt and increase funding may determine whether Wisconsin men’s basketball and football will eventually be able to match other top spenders or if they will continue playing moneyball.
Whatever the answer may be and however this offseason unfolds, the upcoming season will somewhat resemble the 2025-26 season in that there will be many new faces on the court next October. But if one thing has stood the test of time, it’s that the Badgers always find a way to remain competitive — no matter the challenge.
