Wisconsin basketball recruiting: UW offers another Lakeville (Minn.) North standout

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

• Unranked 2023 wing Nolan Winter (Lakeville, Minn.) out of Lakeville North High School received an offer from the Badgers on Wednesday at UW’s advanced camp for high school prospects. Winter also currently has an offer from Minnesota, where his father played basketball for Clem Haskins and his mother played volleyball. Maryland is apparently also showing interest according to his 247 profile page.

Winter stands 6-foot-8 and weighs around 180 pounds and, after watching his tape, looks just like the kind of player the Badgers would go after. You may remember Lakeville North as the same high school that produced current Badger Tyler Wahl and former Badger Nate Reuvers, who both just so happened to be in the picture that Winter picked for his scholarship announcement on Twitter.

B5Q’s Lakeville Insider, Neal, notes that the Badgers pulling Winter away from the Gophers will be pretty tough due to the family ties to the school and the fact that Lakeville’s coach wasn’t always the biggest fan of Richard Pitino, who is now the coach at New Mexico, so new coach Ben Johnson has a chance to mend the in-state fences. Playing for Howard Pulley is another check in the Badgers favor, however, as Greg Gard has a good relationship with their program.

The above highlights aren’t the best quality, but they show the basics of what Winter’s game is. He is an excellent shooter. He has a high, repeatable release and is a marksman on spot up threes. However, he isn’t super athletic and while he can get to the basket there isn’t much explosion to the tin. He appears to be a little slow-footed as well and I don’t know how well he’d hold up on defense in the Big Ten.

Obviously, he has time to work on all of this as he’s entering his junior year in the fall, but I would’ve want to see some marked improvement next season before making an offer. However, there is a reason I’m not a college basketball coach and it’s because I may not be the best scout on the planet. So, I guess we’ll see who is right!