A tough exhibition loss provided a retooled Wisconsin squad with several aspects to address before the Badgers’ regular-season opener against visiting Campbell.
Wisconsin, ranked No. 24 in the preseason poll, dropped the exhibition opener against Oklahoma 85-84 on Friday. The Badgers, with nine newcomers, have another exhibition vs. in-state D-3 school Wisconsin-Platteville, before facing Campbell on Monday, Nov. 3.
“I think the thing that excites me about this group the most is what they are not, in terms of we’re not good enough yet on the defensive end, specifically,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said following the Oklahoma game. “And being more efficient offensively on every possession. That tells me we’ve got, you know, obviously a long ways to go, but that’s the exciting part.”
Wisconsin (27-10, 13-7 Big Ten) lost to BYU 91-89 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament when leading scorer John Tonje missed at the buzzer.
Campbell (15-17, 10-8 CAA) will be under first-year coach John Andrzejek, who was an assistant the last two seasons at national champion Florida.
Wisconsin must replace Tonje, who averaged a team-high 19.6 points in his lone season, along with 7-foot forward Steven Crowl (9.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg) who started all 37 games, and hard-nosed guard Max Klesmit (9.2 ppg).
John Blackwell (15.8 ppg, 5.1 rpg) and Nolan Winter (9.4 ppg, 5.8 rpg) also each started all 37 games. Another key returner is redshirt sophomore guard Jack Janicki, who appeared in all 37 games.
Senior Nick Boyd, who played last season at San Diego State (13.4 ppg) after three seasons at Florida Atlantic is expected to start at point guard. Senior guard Andrew Rohde transfers back to his home state after two seasons at Virginia, but averaged 17.1 points as a freshman at St. Thomas.
Sophomore forward Austin Rapp, a native of Melbourne, Australia, averaged 13.8 points, 6.5 rebounds last season at Portland and was West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year.
Blackwell had 20 points and Boyd 19 in the exhibition loss to Oklahoma. Rapp had 17 points and Winter 10. Aleksas Bieliauskas, a 6-10 true freshman forward from Lithuania, played 13 minutes vs. Oklahoma, hitting a pair of 3-pointers.
The Badgers shot 43.5 percent, but were just 10 of 31 beyond the arc. Oklahoma shot 51.8 percent, including 55.0 percent from deep. Andrzejek was looking forward to making his debut against a ranked team.
“I want to play well. That’s the most important thing,” Andrzejek said on Campbell’s weekly podcast. “And we’ll see what that means. If we come out of the Madison game and playing well means losing by eight, I can live with that.”
Andrzejek inherited just four returning players, including senior guard Cam Gregory (7.8 ppg), who started 31 of 32 games. Graduate student guard Tasos Cook (4.9 ppg) started seven of the eight final games.
Graduate transfer guard DJ Smith (9.1 ppg) started 32 of 35 games last season at Robert Morris after one season at Bowling Green and two at Little Rock. Sophomore forward Dovydas Butka started all 35 games at Pepperdine (9.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg).
Sophomore guard Jeremiah Johnson started 27 games at Green Bay (10.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg).
