Wisconsin basketball recruiting: news roundup

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!

‘Crootin news roundup!

• 2020 commit Steven Crowl (Eagan, Minn.) out of Eastview High School had his official senior season mixtape released over the weekend.

Crowl’s catch and shoot ability from beyond the arc is impressive and will serve him well at Wisconsin. He has nice footwork in the post too but who knows how that will be affected by playing against more players his size. With a front court rotation that is pretty much set at Wisconsin, one of Crowl or fellow 2020 big Ben Carlson will most likely redshirt. I’d prefer it be Crowl because his fifth year will be WAY more useful to the Badgers than his freshman year.

• 2021 commit, 4-star PF Matthew Mors (Yankton, S.D.) won another player of the year award in South Dakota.

“It really means a lot to win it because it’s something that I’ve been wanting for quite some time and I can’t thank enough people for getting me here,” Matthew Mors said. Mors has one season of high school hoops left and he’s already the leading career scorer for his division in South Dakota.

• 2021 4-star OL commit Riley Mahlman (Lakeville, Minn.), who was recently named to the 2021 All-American Bowl, might be angling to be a two-sport athlete in Madison????

Pretty sweet stroke for a kid that size!

• The Wisconsin Badgers have one spot remaining in their 2021 class and they will be using it on a player to fill the “Brevin Pritzl/Ben Brust Long Range Bomber” role. Their top target is 247 Composite 3-star SG Julian Roper (Frankling, Mich.) out of St. Mary’s Prep and he announced over the weekend that he’ll be committing on May 4th.

247 Sports’ Evan Flood has had Roper Crystal Balled to Wisconsin since October and there was talk that he might commit in November on his official visit (we, in fact, have had a commitment post ready for him since that weekend that Belz reminded me about).

The Badgers sent out a recent offer to another class of 2021 shooting guard last week (linked at beginning of this post) which may have compelled Roper to set a commitment date and either grab his spot in Madison or pick a different school because both he and the Badgers are moving on.

Wisconsin is battling Northwestern for Roper’s commitment as evidenced by a couple of Rivals writers picking the Wildcats as his destination. Roper has mentioned that he feels very comfortable at Wisconsin due to the presence of his teammate Lorne Bowman (who is a part of the 2020 class) and his relationship with 2021 commit Chucky Hepburn.

“It’s a real big deal,” Roper said of those relationships. “It will be a big part in my decision, knowing I’d be going there with people I already know. I already go to school and have classes with Lorne and see him every day. Chucky is a real cool dude.”

We’ll keep you posted if anything changes between now and his announced commitment date.