Wisconsin recruiting: roundup of new offers for football and basketball

The coaching staffs for the Badgers football and basketball teams are still hard at work on the recruiting trail and handed out a few offers, officially, this week that are noteworthy.

• First, the Badgers offered Robert Wooten, a 247 Composite 3-star strong-side defensive end out of Stafford, Texas. Wooten had been committed to Arizona until July 16th and since then, Mizzou has skyrocketed to the presumed top of his board.

Currently the Tigers have a 100% Crystal Ball prediction on 247, but the Badgers clearly see an opening here and think they can make a move. Wooten has 24 overall offers and Missouri, SMU, Texas Tech and Arizona (still) are the current frontrunners. Arkansas, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Utah, Cal, Houston and others have all made an offer to Wooten.

The 6’3” and 230 pound DE had 11 sacks last season for Stafford High School (outside of Houston), where he also earned a spot on the first-team all-district squad.

• Wide receiver Isaac Smith received his official offer from the Badgers this week as well. Tyler already broke down his offer here. But it is worth noting again that Wisconsin seems like the frontrunner here now that they’ve entered the fray.

• The basketball team also handed out an offer this week to a 2021 center from Washington state. Jackson Grant is a 4-star composite center from Olympia who stands 6’9” and weighs 205 pounds.

He is rated as the 71st best player in the country, the 10th best center and the third best player in the state of Washington. He’s currently a pretty strong lean towards the home state Huskies, but he fits exactly what the Badgers are looking for out of a center. He’s athletic and he can shoot and he has a lot of room to grow into his body.

Grant was recently invited to USA Basketball’s Men’s Junior National Team camp along with other highly rated prospects like Patrick Baldwin Jr. and state-mate Paolo Banchero, so he’ll eventually get more offers than the five he has now. Outside of the two UWs, San Diego, Pepperdine and Stanford are the schools that are high on Grant.

• Lastly, Ohio State has reportedly missed out on its top two targets at running back in the 2020 cycle and have now moved on to one of Wisconsin’s top remaining targets. Kevontre Bradford, the 4-star tailback out of Texas, is considering the Badgers, Baylor, Southern Cal and Oklahoma State but who knows what sort of game-changer an offer from the Buckeyes is.