Wisconsin basketball 2025 preview CBSSports offense projection

With roughly three months remaining until the 2025-26 college basketball regular season, the Wisconsin Badgers received high praise on Friday. 

In CBS Sports’ recent article, titled ‘101 Days Out: College basketball stars, new faces, contenders, storylines ahead of 2025-26 season’, analyst Isaac Trotter outlined several lookahead themes for the 2025-26 slate. Among those themes, Trotter looked at which programs roster the best projected offensive units.

Wisconsin, which finished the 2024-25 season with a 27-10 mark and No. 3 seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament, was listed as one of the outlet’s top 10 projected offensive programs this fall alongside the UConn Huskies, Purdue Boilermakers, Louisville Cardinals, Florida Gators, Kentucky Wildcats, Illinois Fighting Illini, BYU Cougars, Texas Tech Red Raiders and Duke Blue Devils.

Here’s what Trotter shared regarding the Badgers’ offensive outlook this season:

“The Badgers have three guards who can play on or off the ball in John Blackwell, Andrew Rohde and Nick Boyd, surrounding two sweet-shooting forwards (Austin Rapp and Nolan Winter). That’s a dangerous combination offensively. Losing John Tonje stings, but Blackwell is the total package and has All-America upside as the go-to alpha.”

Yes, Wisconsin’s roster is revamped with all sorts of talent, but projecting the program to recreate its 2024-25 offensive success is a difficult task. Wisconsin boasted KenPom’s No. 13 offensive unit this past season, a threshold traditional Badger ensembles rarely reach.

Backed by All-American wing John Tonje, who now a member of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, UW averaged 80.1 points per game off 45.4% shooting from the field, 34.8% from 3-point range and 82.6% from the charity stripe. Notably, Gard’s group finished with at least 80 points in 19 contests — the most by any Badger bunch in years.

UW now welcomes the aforementioned Rhode, Boyd and Rapp into its starting unit, three more-than-capable offensive contributors. In a loaded Big Ten, the starting unit shapes up well against almost any program.

That lineup’s first exhibition test is slated for Oct. 24 against the Oklahoma Sooners in Milwaukee.

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