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Wisconsin recruiting: Jack Nelson and Trey Wedig are off to Texas [UPDATED WITH JALEN BERGER NEWS]

Plus we take a look at how some basketball commits did over the weekend in their games.

By Drew Hamm Updated
NCAA Basketball: Illinois at Wisconsin Mary Langenfeld-USA TODAY Sports

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any major college athletics team, but following it closely as a fan can sometimes be difficult and can often be time consuming. We’ll try and condense all the recruiting news you can use into this bi-weekly post. It’ll include updates on current commits, including stats from their high school games, as well as news on players the Badgers are still pursuing. Let’s get down to business!

All-American Bowl Game attendees

  • Two Badgers commits, 4-star OL Trey Wedig (Wales) and 4-star OL Jack Nelson (Stoughton), will be suiting up for the West team in the All-American Bowl in San Antonio on Jan. 4th. Pretty cool that they’ll get a chance to play together before coming to Madison.
  • Those two are already signed and ready to play for the Badgers. One player who isn’t signed, but might some day play for the Badgers, is 4-star RB Jalen Berger (Ramsey, N.J.). Berger has the Badgers in his top-five and has said that he’ll commit during the game. He is considered a Rutgers lean, but as we saw with Kaden Johnson’s recruitment...you just never know what a recruit is going to do.

Football commits who are also playing hoops

  • I think it’s good for kids in high school to play more than one sport year-round. It diversifies their skill set.

Basketball commits updates

  • 2021 4-star PG commit Chucky Hepburn (Bellevue, Neb.) led his team to victory over the weekend in the Metro Holiday Tournament in Omaha.

I really like Hepburn’s ability to get to the rim and finish through contact as shown in the highlight below. Like many high schoolers, he’ll benefit from a college weight program, but he’s already shown that he isn’t afraid of taking it in amongst the trees in the paint.

  • 2020 big man commit Steven Crowl (Eagan, Minn.) helped his team to a big win over the weekend.

This Centennial team did not put up much of a fight and Crowl got almost all of his points directly at the rim, but there is a nice transition block in the highlight video below, so good hustle, Crowl!

  • 2020 big man commit Ben Carlson (Woodbury, Minn.) of East Ridge High School did not have his best game of the season in a marquee matchup against Jalen Suggs, Chet Holmgren and Minnehaha Academy.

Carlson was held to just 13 points, third most on his team, while Suggs poured in 25. UW football commit Kaden Johnson added four points for Minnehaha.

Basketball recruiting targets

  • 2021 4-star SG Julian Roper (West Bloomfield, Mich.) continues to light it up for St. Mary’s. Hopefully the Badgers can close him soon because he would be a great addition to the already stacked 2021 class.

Football recruiting targets

  • 2022 4-star S Braelon Allen (Fond du Lac) is part of a loaded 2022 class in the state of Wisconsin. He, along with 4-star offensive linemen Joe Brunner (Milwaukee) and Carson Hinzman (Hammond), are all ranked in the top-100 of the 247 Sports 2022 rankings. All three are considered to be Wisconsin leans and would be an impressive base for the 2022 class.

After that, it was announced that Berger was going to be choosing between UCLA and Wisconsin, the two schools he took official visits to, during the All-American Bowl on Saturday.

It was thought for a while that Berger would stay home and go to Rutgers because he liked the proximity and the hire of head coach Greg Schiano, but something has apparently changed and he’s down to the Bruins and Badgers. Were he to sign with Wisconsin, he’d be the second highest rated RB (after John Clay) to come to Madison in the recruiting rankings era.

The All-American Bowl kicks off at noon central time on NBC this Saturday and we will have any Berger coverage necessary for you right here on B5Q.

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