Wisconsin basketball recruiting: will UW add another 2022 recruit to their class?

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 (sometimes more) 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!

I started writing this post before the news came out that backup PG Lorne Bowman II was leaving the program and, quite frankly, it now makes a lot more sense why Wisconsin has such renewed interest in adding another player to their 2022 class. It should be noted that none of these four players have received a scholarship offer from UW.

New interest from Wisconsin

• So, this is a former 2022 prospect who reclassified to 2023 for a post grad year but thought he was still worth noting and didn’t want to do a whole separate post, ok? Big man Chris Loofe (Austin, Texas) is playing with Link Year Prep (a post grad basketball factory basically) and plays his grassroots ball for Michael Porter Jr. Elite. The 6-foot-11 prospect can shoot it well from deep and looks very much like a player Wisconsin has succeeded with in the past. It’ll be interesting to see if Greg Gard pulls the trigger on an offer here.

• 2022 3-star C Christ Essandoko (Paris, France) who plays at Winston-Salem (N.C.) Prep recently de-committed from Providence and has been hearing from a bunch of schools, including the Badgers. Standing at 7-foot tall and weighing 265 pounds, Essandoko is a mountain of man who is already a good rebounder and rim protector who can also stroke it from deep. He is like if Chris Vogt could shoot, basically, which I think would be a valuable player to have.

• Another recently de-committed big man that the Badgers are taking a look at is 2022 3-star big man Connor Turnbull (O’Fallon, Mo.) out of Fort Zumwalt North High School. Turnbull had committed to Butler but was released from his NLI after head coach LaVall Jordan was fired last week. He is 6-foot-10 and weighs around 215 pounds and had offers from Mizzou, Kansas State, Saint Louis and Indiana State before choosing the Bulldogs. Creighton, Dayton and Iowa are also interested according to Mizzou’s Rivals site. He averaged 23.5 points per game and shot better than 60% from the floor while also averaging 12.7 rebounds and 4.6 blocks per game as a senior.

• 2022 PF Luke Northweather (Jefferson City, Mo.) out of Blair Oaks High School is also receiving some interest from UW. Standing at 6-foot-10 and weighing 220 pounds, Northweather was named the Missouri Gatorade Boys Player of the Year for this season. He averaged 29.2 points (38.8% shooting from deep, 71.6% shooting from the field), 11.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.4 blocks and 2.0 steals per game while being named the Tri-County Conference Player of the Year. He set his high school’s single-game scoring record back in February when he scored 51 points against Eldon High.