Wauwatosa West star, prized 2027 recruit Jalen Brown commits to Wisconsin

• Wauwatosa West guard Jalen Brown has committed to the Wisconsin men’s basketball program.
• Brown is the first commitment for the Badgers’ 2027 recruiting class.
• The four-star recruit is ranked as a top-100 player nationally by both 247 Sports and Rivals.

MADISON – Wisconsin men’s basketball has kept one of the best in-state recruits home.

Wauwatosa West’s Jalen Brown has committed to the Badgers, he announced on June 5, giving Greg Gard his first commitment of the 2027 class.

Brown – a four-star recruit rated 66th nationally by 247 Sports and 63rd nationally by Rivals – chose Wisconsin over scholarship offers from Indiana, Iowa, Washington, California, Minnesota and others.

The 6-foot-4 guard was on the Journal Sentinel’s first-team all-area boys basketball team in 2025-26 after averaging 20.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 2.9 steals per game. He also was the Greater Metro Conference’s player of the year.

That was a year after helping Wauwatosa West win its first-ever state title in 2024-25 while earning third-team all-area recognition.

“They’re getting a really good basketball player, but probably even a better person,” Wauwatosa West coach Christopher Newbauer told the Journal Sentinel. “Super awesome guy. … They’re getting a point guard or combo guard that sees the floor extremely well. He gets his teammates involved. He’s a kid that can score at all three levels.”

Looking ahead to Brown’s senior year of high school, Newbauer wants to see Brown add more muscle and become more vocal ahead of competing in the Big Ten.

“He’s the complete package kid,” Newbauer said. “The two things things that he needs to work on, if he gets that, I think he could be a pro down the line. If he isn’t maybe playing in the NBA or something like that, he definitely will be playing overseas.”

He is the first top-100 in-state player, as ranked by 247 Sports, to join the Badgers since Brevin Pritzl in the 2015 recruiting class. Two of the other top-100 in-state players in the 2027 class, Dooney Johnson and Donovan Davis, committed to Gonzaga and Iowa State, respectively.

“Obviously, they missed out on some guys in the past here, and they recruited Jalen really hard,” Newbauer said. “Hopefully that starts a trend moving forward. Maybe they get the kid from Slinger now.”

Brown has stood out amid a particularly deep 2027 recruiting class in the state. Johnson, Davis, Brown, Slinger’s Jack Kohnen and Wisconsin Lutheran’s Kager Knueppel all are ranked No. 125 or higher in 247 Sports’ rankings. Kohnen and Kneuppel both have received scholarship offers from Gard’s staff as well.

“It’s as deep as it’s been in a while,” Gard said of the 2027 class back in October. “We won’t be able to take all of them if they would all want to come. I can’t take them all because it creates an imbalance. If you get too young, you’re going to find yourself at the bottom of the ladder looking up really fast.”