Emergency basketball recruiting update!

We’ve already discussed, at length, the football recruits that were in Madison over the weekend to take in Wisconsin’s ass-kicking of Michigan. But it was also a big weekend for Greg Gard and the basketball team.

A number of very highly touted recruits were on the sidelines and we have tried to round up everything we can about who was there.

Last week was a HUGE recruiting week for Gard as he was able to secure verbal commitments from two players out of the Twin Cities. Not only are they good players that will help the team, they are also taken from directly under the nose of Richard Pitino and the Golden Gophers.

Those two recruits finish up the 2020 class for the Badgers, but as you know...recruiting never stops and a number of future players were at Camp Randall Stadium to soak in the atmosphere.

• The most “important,” and I’m putting that word in quotes because there were higher rated players there, but this one is the most likely to commit, recruit on campus on Saturday was Jackson Grant (Olympia, Wash.).

Grant is a 4-star center for the class of 2021 and is rated as the No. 53 player in the whole country by 247 Composite. He is considered a strong Washington lean, but plans on taking more visits to Stanford and Washington. He is also receiving interest from Oklahoma, Cal, Pepperdine and San Diego.

He shows a willingness to bang down low on defense and finish through contact, which are two obvious skills needed when playing against the Michigan States and Purdues of the world, and he can also step outside and drain a three. One of the skills I liked was his willingness to make the extra pass. When you’re the best player on your team it can often feel like a “loss” if you have to pass the ball. It doesn’t seem like Grant has that mindset.

• Here is a nice picture of everyone in attendance for the basketball team.

You will note that Jordan Davis, Johnny Davis, Chris Hodges (class of 2021), Carter Gilmore and Lorne Bowman are there to do some recruiting of their own.

We’ll see how their efforts paid off once the 2021 class starts to really take shape around Hodges.

• The highest profile recruit that was there was certainly 5-star SG Max Christie (Rolling Meadows, Ill.). Christie is not active on Twitter, but he is in that picture above and is also AAU teammates with Hodges in Illinois.

He is rated as the No. 14 player in the whole country for 2021 by the 247 Composite and the top shooting guard. He is widely believed to be going to Duke but also has offers from Virginia, Villanova, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Ohio State, Baylor, Florida, Michigan State, Iowa, Michigan, Cal, Purdue and Stanford...among others.

Christie does everything you want a modern shooting guard/wing to do and he does it well. To be blunt, he isn’t coming to Wisconsin...but if something crazy were to happen he would be one of the best players to ever commit to the Badgers.

• 2021 PG Ben Nau (Brookfield) is currently unranked by both Rivals and 247 but was also in Madison over the weekend.

The 6-foot-1 in-state floor general has offers from DePaul, Milwaukee and Miami (OH) according to Rivals and is receiving interest from the Badgers and UW-Green Bay.

• A 2022 guard, Jack Rose (Salem), was also at the game on an unofficial visit.

Besides having the same name as an excellent cocktail, I couldn’t find too much information on Rose’s game. He is 6-foot-3 and Wisconsin seems to be the only team that has shown much interest so far.