Wisconsin basketball recruiting: updates on current commits

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!

Basketball commit updates

• 3-star 2020 PG commit Lorne Bowman (Detroit, Mich.) and 4-star 2021 SG target Julian Roper (Detroit, Mich.) are leading St. Mary’s to win after win, in dominating fashion to boot. The highlights below show how electric Roper can be on the court.

This is a great story about how a player like Bowman can be right under the noses of Michigan and Michigan State and still end up at Wisconsin.

“I loved how much they were interested in me,” he [Bowman] said. “Any kid that’s choosing a college would obviously want a college to be really interested in them.

“I was elated how they knew everything about me. They knew my family, they knew where I came from. They just really put all the pieces together and recruited me.”

The temptation for a player of Bowman’s talent might be to string Wisconsin along, hoping U-M would take the leap and offer a scholarship as well.

But he didn’t take that tack. He knew how much Wisconsin wanted him, and he wanted to be wanted.

Bowman is favored to be one of the finalists for Michigan’s Mr. Basketball Award at the end of the season thanks to games like the one Flood tweeted about above. He’s an all-around guard and will fit in well at Wisconsin.

Bowman’s St. Mary’s team, the No. 1 team in the state, did lose on Monday night, 70-61, to Flint Beecher and Jalen Terry (Oregon commit and another potential Mr. Basketball winner). Bowman had 26 points in the loss.

• Twin brothers and Wisconsin 2020 commits, 3-stars Johnny Davis and Jordan Davis each had good games in No. 1 La Crosse Central’s loss to No. 2 Onalaska over the weekend. The first time Central has lost to Onalaska in six games.

Johnny Davis was basically a one man wrecking crew against Onalaska, while Jordan filled in nicely with a complementary role.

As one would expect, Central (7-1, 3-1) came out swinging, scoring 12 of the game’s first 14 points with University of Wisconsin commit Johnny Davis accounting for 10 of them.

In fact, it was the Johnny Davis show in the first half. He scored at the rim, from the perimeter and in the mid-range on his way to 21 of his game-high 32 points. The Red Raiders led throughout the first half after getting the quick lead.

The Red Raiders are now on their way to Florida to play in one of the toughest high school tournaments of the season. Montverde Academy is one of the best teams in the country and they feature Cade Cunningham, one of the top players in the country. Long Island Lutheran, another top-15 school in the nation, will also be playing. Should be a fun test for Central. The press release linked above only mentions Jordan Davis as being a Wisconsin commit so hopefully Johnny uses that as bulletin board material.

Updated rankings

• Ben Carlson is ranked No. 66, Steven Crowl No. 96 and Johnny Davis No. 97 in the updated rankings on Prep Hoops.