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Mar 19, 2026; Portland, OR, USA; Wisconsin Badgers guard John Blackwell (25) reacts during the second half of a first round game of the men's 2026 NCAA Tournament against the High Point Panthers at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images | Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images
The Wisconsin Badgers had a bit of a challenge this offseason, as they were going to have to replace both of their star guards. John Blackwell entered the transfer portal, while Nick Boyd was out of eligibility, which meant that Wisconsin was losing its top two scorers from the 2025-26 season.
As a result, that shifted the Badgers’ thought process when it came to roster construction. Wisconsin had to be financially smart, but the strongest part of their returning core was the frontcourt. So, the Badgers looked to lock up Nolan Winter and Austin Rapp, while building the rest of their core around that duo.
So, Wisconsin went out and got Australian guard Owen Foxwell from the NBL. Then, they added guard Trey Autry and wing Eian Elmer from the transfer portal, filling out the remaining holes in their projected starting lineup.
Now, the Badgers have a pretty deep roster that feels well-rounded at the top, setting up for what should be an intriguing year this season.
With how the transfer portal is nowadays, head coach Greg Gard acknowledged that work is being done 365 days a year, and that puts a lot more stress on him and his coaching staff to constantly evaluate players to look both at the present and the future.
A big part of that process is general manager Marc VandeWettering, who has been a crucial part of the staff behind the scenes when it comes to negotiating contracts and talking with agents.
Speaking on The Butchie’s Den with Brian Butch last week, VandeWettering broke down the staff’s process as they looked to build out this year’s roster.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously what you’re talking about there (with managing the salary cap) is a big part of [roster construction],” VandeWettering said. “Knowing the capital that you have to be able to invest in the team as a whole is really key to being able to figure out the strategy of how you want to disperse it. There’s a lot of different ways to go about this.
“Obviously last year, we went heavy with making sure we had two really good guards, and that worked really well for us, right? And, you know, I think obviously going through this year, keeping the frontcourt [was the priority] because we can kind of see how the market was going to go and that the frontcourt pieces were going to cost a lot if you went to the portal for those, and we wanted to make sure that retaining those and retaining those early were a priority. So we made sure to make that happen.”
That big difference from year-to-year helped shape out what Wisconsin wanted with the rest of its roster.
“As we build out a roster, we’ve got 15 spots,” VandeWettering said. “And for the most part, we want to build it from the top down to make sure that we’ve got the guys that are going to [play] on game day, help you win the most games [are] taken care of. And we’ve got those boxes filled because if we try to build from the bottom up, well, all of a sudden, we could be in a place where we don’t have enough capital or resources to be able to secure a guy that could be your starting wing. And that’s a really bad spot to be in.
“So, we want to make sure that we build a roster where it’s competitive. We’ve got depth. We’ve got options at all 5 positions. But the beauty of the way we’re running offense now, there’s a lot of interchanging between positions, you know, and it’s not as rigid 1 through 5. Yeah, you want a true point, you want some wings, obviously you want your frontcourt pieces, but we could play 2 fours next to each other if the lineup makes sense, or we could play a bunch of smaller guards together, or we could play small ball and have, for example, Jack Janicki playing the 4 last year. It’s very adaptable to the personnel we have, which I think is credit to Coach Gard and the staff that we’ve been able to implement an offense that allows us flexibility with how we build the roster.”
Still, when it comes to roster building in the transfer portal, the No. 1 thing is the negotiations with players and their agents. Nowadays, the price has to be right for the fit to be there for both sides.
“But yeah, I mean, you go into these negotiations, you got to find out what the price is first, you know, because I can’t have coaches falling in love with a player and I gotta come back and tell them there’s no way it’s going to fit within what we want to do,” VandeWettering added. “And I think, we want to stay disciplined to the strategy we have with what we have allotted to each position. But at the same time, you got to stay flexible because if you can sense that, like, ‘hey, you know what, if we shifted a little bit here and maybe over what we had originally thought, but it allows us to get this player that would really help, okay, well, let’s stay flexible.’ Maybe we can adjust there and find somebody else.
“But I think, you know, being able to move on quickly and not getting caught up into negotiations that you’re really far apart on, it’s not going to end well, and you’re going to miss out on a lot of other options. You got to be quick, you got to be decisive, but making sure that you stay within your strategy, but also adaptable to whatever’s in front of you as well. So, when we go through that, there’s conversations that we have with people that are returning and retaining guys that, you know, ‘hey, we’re really far apart. It’s best for you to go explore your options, and if you don’t like the options you hear, and we’re still looking for that position, we sure, we can come back and revisit this. But as things stand right now, it’s not going to work because it’s too far outside of our strategy.’”
Wisconsin dealt with a bit of that this offseason, and they were prepared for those outcomes. It was getting clear early on that retaining John Blackwell was going to be a challenge, both due to the financials and the heavy interest from top programs elsewhere.
But Wisconsin also found itself to be in a tough spot with starting forward Aleksas Bieliauskas, as the financials didn’t match there. Bieliauskas ended up transferring to South Carolina.
Still, the Badgers managed to put together a quality roster, and we’ll see how far coaching can take them in a fairly stacked Big Ten next year.
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