• Four senior guards have exhausted their eligibility, creating a void in the team’s backcourt.
• Two forwards have announced their intention to enter the transfer portal, though the frontcourt could retain some key players.
• The Badgers appear to have five open roster spots to fill at this point in the roster management process.

With eight newcomers (or nine until one preseason dismissal), the Wisconsin men’s basketball roster for 2025-26 looked much different from its 2024-25 roster.

Now with the 2025-26 season in the rearview mirror, early indications point toward the 2026-27 roster again looking much different from this season’s.

Wisconsin is losing four seniors and two players who intend to transfer and already had one open roster spot. With more than a week before the transfer portal opens April 7, that means the Badgers could have at least seven newcomers on a 2026-27 roster that is capped at 15 players.

Here is a look at where the roster stands at this point in the reconstruction process:

Wisconsin’s guards

Exhausted eligibility: Nick Boyd, Andrew Rohde, Braeden Carrington, Isaac Gard

Intending to transfer: No announcements yet

Has ability to return: John Blackwell, Jack Janicki, Zach Kinziger, Hayden Jones

Incoming freshmen: LaTrevion Fenderson, Jackson Ball

The Badgers will have a much different backcourt as they replace starting guards Boyd and Rohde and key reserve Carrington. The big question is whether they can retain Blackwell, who said he did not know his plans in the immediate aftermath of the March Madness loss.

Boyd, Rohde and Carrington’s departures already account for a loss of about 41% of the team’s scoring and 51% of the team’s assists from the 2025-26 season. Losing Blackwell too would swell those numbers to 64% of the team’s scoring lost and 65% of the team’s assists lost.

Janicki removed any doubt about his status when he said after the loss to High Point that he plans to return to the Badgers. Aside from Blackwell, he is the only other UW guard with the ability to come back who averaged at least 10 minutes per game this season.

Wisconsin’s forwards

Exhausted eligibility: None

Intending to transfer: Jack Robison, Riccardo Greppi

Has ability to return: Nolan Winter, Austin Rapp, Aleksas Bieliauskas, Will Garlock

For as much change as Wisconsin’s backcourt is experiencing, the frontcourt has the potential to have a similar composition in 2026-27.

Winter, Rapp, Bieliauskas and Garlock were the four players who each played in at least 30 of UW’s 35 games, and each player has the option to return. Rapp indicated after the High Point loss that he “100%” plans on returning, and Winter wanted to “live minute-by-minute and soak this all in” when he faced questions about his future.

Robison and Greppi, the first two UW players to signal their intention to enter the transfer portal, were on the floor for 31 and 19 minutes in 2025-26, respectively. Those were the two lowest minute totals among scholarship players. With Daniel Freitag transferring last year and Robison and Greppi transferring this year, UW’s entire 2024 high school recruiting class will be playing elsewhere.

When could Wisconsin’s transfer portal activity pick up?

The men’s college basketball transfer portal window will open April 7 and last through April 21. As already evident with Robison and Greppi, though, it is often in athletes’ best interests to announce their intention to transfer before the portal officially opens.

The 15-day window dictates when a player can enter the portal (with a few exceptions), but players do not necessarily need to commit to their new school during that time.

UW appears to have five open roster spots when taking into account players intending to depart and recruits joining the program as freshmen. General manager Marc VandeWettering has long strategized UW’s roster reconstruction efforts for the 2026 offseason, and athletes’ agents may have been thinking ahead as well.

“We’d be naive to think that agents aren’t trying to figure out the markets for people,” VandeWettering told the Journal Sentinel in a late-February conversation, “whether that means they’re actually shopping somebody or just trying to figure out what numbers should look like.”

There’s no good way to move on from a loss like the Wisconsin Badgers had in Round 1 against High Point, but in today’s college basketball landscape, you don’t really get the luxury of sitting idle for very long.

The offseason starts the moment the clock hits zero — and if we’re being honest, it typically begins well before that. And for Wisconsin’s front office, that means balancing two things at once — acknowledging the frustration of another early NCAA Tournament exit while also recognizing that this program is still operating from a position of strength.

Because both can be true.

Greg Gard and his staff built a team this year that could score with anyone in the country. That wasn’t accidental. It was a conscious shift made over the last few years as they leaned into spacing, tempo, and offensive efficiency.

The result? A group that averaged 83.0 points per game, the program’s highest scoring output in more than five decades, and one of the most efficient offenses Wisconsin has had in the modern era.

They knew what they were building. And they’re owning it.

But the trade-off was real, too. Defensively, this wasn’t up to the standard Wisconsin has historically set. The balance wasn’t quite there. And in March, when possessions tighten and margins shrink, that showed up.

So now the question becomes simple. How do you maintain what made you dangerous as a team — while fixing what held you back?

That’s the puzzle this offseason.

And it starts, as it always does now, with retention.

There’s a strong belief internally that if Wisconsin can keep the right core pieces in place, they’ll once again be in position to go out and add impact talent through the portal. This staff has earned that benefit of the doubt.

They’ve adapted to this era as well as anyone — identifying fits, developing them, and, more often than not, hitting on key additions. You don’t have to look far for proof. AJ Storr. John Tonje. Nick Boyd. It’s not hard to sell that track record to players on the open market when you can point to what those guys were able to do in this system.

And it’s why there’s confidence they can do it again. With the transfer portal officially opening on April 7, what this staff targets this time around matters — because the needs are pretty clearly defined.

We are managing the land to preserve native vegetation and reduce invasive species. Perhaps the greatest invasive will now be the MariBell project’s huge metal stanchions.

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• Massive 765kV transmission lines are being proposed for construction across western and eastern Wisconsin.
• One proposed project, the MariBell transmission line, would cut through the state’s Driftless region.
• The new lines would replace existing 161kV lines with structures soaring 200 feet high.
• Concerns have been raised about the project’s impact on the landscape, wildlife, and property values.

How much power do we really need and where should it come from? 

Across the state people are being asked to sacrifice precious land for the construction of massive 765kV transmission lines that are mounted on erector set-like structures that soar 200 feet into the air and cut a swath 250 feet wide across the landscape of both western and eastern Wisconsin. Land and resources that cannot be replaced.

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One of these lines is the MariBell transmission line that will cut through the heart of the Driftless region. This line, if it were to go through the Driftless area as proposed, will cross miles of land that avoided the assault of glaciers eons ago to now be destroyed by bulldozers to erect gigantic metal towers for the worship of greed.

This line would replace existing 161 kV lines with 765 kV lines that are more than double the width of existing lines. This means taking out trees, prairies, farms and homes for not only people but endangered wildlife.

Wisconsin wants more power, but at what cost?

The metal towers that soar 200 feet up in the air will be seen for miles away, some on ridgetops may need lights at night. Lights that could harm nocturnal animals and bring diffuse light for all of us who would prefer to see stars at night and occasionally the Northern Lights.

There has not been an established need for this massive line nor is the Driftless region a location worth destroying. This project will place an ever increasing financial burden on utility users who do not even benefit from the line and adversely affect property values in Crawford and Vernon counties. It will cause irreparable damage to the land, air and water as well as the beauty of the Wisconsin landscape that we all love.

It is past time for all Wisconsinites and all those we elect to take a step back and really identify what it is we value and what we want our future to look like. Then act to protect those values! Do electric power utilities, and the regulatory Public Service Commission, only have a responsibility to provide power and not the responsibility to do no harm to the people and native landscape?

Stewardship of Driftless landscape becoming more difficult

We are landowners in Crawford County, Wis., that currently has a 161kV power line going over it and will most likely be right on the route of this new 765kV powerline. We have a cabin that is not connected to electricity, as we are trying to have as small of a footprint on the land as possible. 

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We are managing the land to preserve native vegetation and reduce invasive species. Perhaps the greatest invasive will now be the huge metal stanchions. The challenge of being responsible, sustainable stewards of the land has just become harder.