Wisconsin season preview: Nick Boyd and John Blackwell are gone

Where last season ended

Wisconsin finished 24-11 overall and 14-6 in the Big Ten, fifth in the conference. Greg Gard coached the Badgers. Wisconsin lost to High Point in the NCAA Tournament first round, 83-82. Sports-Reference lists Wisconsin as a fifth seed in the West.

Who is gone

Nick Boyd averaged 20.7 points and 4.3 assists, and John Blackwell averaged 19.1 points and 5.1 rebounds. They were Wisconsin's top two scorers. Andrew Rohde (5.7 points), Aleksas Bieliauskas (4.9 points), Jack Robison, Isaac Gard and Riccardo Greppi are also not on the 2026-27 roster. The averages come from Sports-Reference. The sources give no reasons for any departure.

Who is back

Nolan Winter, a senior forward, averaged 13.1 points and 8.5 rebounds in 2025-26. The Big Ten named him to its 2026-27 preseason All-Big Ten team. Austin Rapp, a junior forward, averaged 9.7 points and 4.0 rebounds. Braeden Carrington, a fifth-year guard, averaged 8.3 points. Jack Janicki (senior guard), Zach Kinziger (sophomore guard), Will Garlock (sophomore forward) and Hayden Jones (sophomore guard) also return.

Who is new

Four players came from other programs: Trey Autry (senior guard, George Washington), Victory Onuetu (senior forward, Hofstra), Eian Elmer (senior guard, Miami (Ohio)) and Owen Foxwell (fifth-year guard, South East Melbourne Phoenix).

The freshman class is listed below.

Incoming freshmen

Wisconsin adds four first-year players, and two of them come from Wisconsin high schools or prep schools. The other two come from Australia and New Zealand. Only LaTrevion Fenderson has a 247Sports national rank in the sources checked.

• Josh Manchester, guard, 6-4, Mount Horeb High School, Mount Horeb, Wis.
• LaTrevion Fenderson, guard, 6-3, St. John's Northwestern Academy, Racine, Wis. (No. 188 in 247Sports national rank)
• Jackson Ball, guard, 6-5, Illawarra Hawks, Napier, New Zealand
• Isaac Riddle, forward, 6-8, Center of Excellence, Adelaide, Australia

The number to know

Three-point attempts per game measure shots taken, not shots made. Wisconsin attempted 32.3 threes per game in 2025-26, seventh of 365 teams on Sports-Reference, across 35 games. The team made 36.2% of them, which ranked 56th. The figure shows how often Wisconsin shot from deep. It does not show whether those shots helped, and it does not show who will take them in 2026-27.

Questions for this season

Does the offense keep the same shot volume without Boyd and Blackwell? Those two combined for 39.8 points per game.

Who creates shots? Boyd averaged 4.3 assists, and no returner has a comparable assist average in the sources.

Can Winter and Rapp carry the frontcourt? Winter averaged 8.5 rebounds, and Rapp averaged 4.0.

Our early read

Tournament team (5th-9th) is our call. Wisconsin keeps its top three returning scorers, Winter, Rapp and Carrington, but loses Boyd and Blackwell. The Columbus Dispatch preseason media poll ranked Wisconsin 11th, just below this tier. We project the Badgers seventh.