Projecting Who's Staying and Who's Leaving from Wisconsin After NCAA Tournament
It's difficult to draw up a more crushing loss than the one the Wisconsin Badgers experienced Sunday.
The No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region of the 2022 NCAA men's basketball tournament is going home after dropping the round-of-32 contest to 11th-seeded Iowa State. The 54-48 loss came in front of a raucous crowd in their home state, making the result that much harder to accept.
As if that's not enough, it likely marked the end of the collegiate careers of Brad Davison and Johnny Davis.
Davison and Chris Vogt are seniors, so it's safe to assume they are on the way out.
As for the rest of the roster? Here's a look at who will probably be back and who will likely be gone for the 2022-23 campaign.
Players Likely to Stay
- Carter Higginbottom
- Tyler Wahl
- Jahcobi Neath
- Steven Crowl
- Ben Carlson
- Carter Gilmore
- Justin Taphorn
- Isaac Lindsey
- Jordan Davis
- Markus Ilver
- Matthew Mors
- Chucky Hepburn
- Chris Hodges
- Lorne Bowman II
The transfer portal is a very real part of the college basketball offseason, and Wisconsin may not be immune with a number of players who have remaining eligibility slated to return.
Still, it wouldn't be a surprise to see all of the above players back in school. After all, none of them appear on a first-round mock draft from Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman or in the top 30 on a big board from The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor.
Wahl, Crowl and Hepburn are all significant contributors and will likely see even bigger roles with Davison and Davis on the way out. Yet they will each need to take major strides if they are going to play their way into serious NBA discussions.
Players Likely to Leave
Johnny Davis
This is fairly cut-and-dried for the Badgers.
The good news is they have just one player likely to leave early for the NBA draft. The bad news is that player just so happens to be one of the best in the country and this season's Big Ten Player of the Year.
Davis was a secondary contributor during the 2020-21 campaign and then exploded in 2021-22 to the tune of 19.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 43.3 percent from the field and 32.5 percent from three-point range.
He put Wisconsin on his back in the first-round comeback win over Colgate with 25 points and eight rebounds and followed with 17 points, nine rebounds, four blocks, two steals and one assist in Sunday's game. The star playmaker scored 20 or more points in 15 different games during the regular season and shot up NBA draft boards in the process.
Wasserman has Davis going No. 8 overall in his mock draft, while O'Connor lists the Wisconsin star at No. 10 on his big board.
Davis is one of the best individual players who has suited up for the Badgers in recent history. That is obviously a welcome thing for the program but also means his time will be short-lived with the NBA calling.