Wisconsin basketball recruiting: Greg Gard offers another 2022 prospect

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 (or more often since we are in Uncertain Times and there aren’t actual sports going on) 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!

New offer

• 2022 3-star (Rivals only) combo forward Isaac Traudt (Grand Island, Neb.) out of Grand Island High School announced on Tuesday night that he has received an offer from the Wisconsin Badgers. This week alone, Traudt has gotten offers from UW, Iowa State, Stanford and Oklahoma State. He also sports offers from Creighton, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas State, Mizzou and some other mid-majors too.

Traudt stands at 6-foot-8 and weighs around 200 pounds and is noted as a power forward, small forward and wing on various recruiting sites. Rivals has him ranked as the No. 117 player in the nation for the 2022 class, while 247Sports doesn’t have him rated yet.

Evan Flood of 247Sports had a pretty in-depth recap of Traudt’s performance ($) two weeks ago at the Jammin’ In July grassroots tournament and mentioned that he didn’t think the Badgers would be ready to offer Traudt so soon, due to the small nature of Wisconsin’s 2022 class.

Greg Gard must have liked what he’s seen already because Traudt has an offer and it is probably his best one, although playing close to home at Creighton might be appealing to Traudt.

Traudt’s Hudl tape notes that he averaged 17 points per game and six rebounds per game as a sophomore at Grand Island.

There is a lot to like about Traudt’s game, quite frankly. I’d wager he has one of the sweeter strokes of anyone in the 2022 class from beyond the arc and he can shoot it in a variety of scenarios: coming off screens, catch and shoot, pull up in transition, it didn’t really seem to matter. Being 6-foot-8 also helped him in this regard because his shot is nearly impossible to block by whoever is guarding him.

He shows decent ball handling and passing skills, especially for someone his size, and he apparently plays a point forward position for his high school team on occasion. He can definitely take it to the tin when necessary, but that isn’t the highlight of his game. He will also probably improve on that as he gets stronger.

Traudt also looks to have keen defensive instincts. He isn’t going to be some sort of monster rim protector, but he can block shots when coming over to help from the weakside and he holds his own when his man tries to drive at him.

The 2022 class has a lot of intriguing offers out right now and it’ll be exciting to see which direction Gard and co. take things.