Mailbag: Wisconsin basketball’s turnaround, Austin Rapp’s role, and unsung contributors
Has Austin Rapp turned a corner? Who matters most beyond Nick Boyd and John Blackwell? How did Wisconsin men's basketball turn the corner, and why does Greg Gard trust Jack Janicki?
Another round of mailbag questions rolled in this week, and the tone among the fanbase has started to change. Wisconsin men’s basketball is no longer being discussed as a team simply trying to keep its head above water. At 16–6 overall and 8–3 in Big Ten play, winners of seven of their last eight games, the Badgers have begun to change the conversation.
This mailbag digs into why that has happened. We look at whether Austin Rapp is starting to turn a corner and why his shooting matters more than people realize. We also discuss who the most important piece on this roster outside of the obvious headliners: Nick Boyd and John Blackwell.
From there, the focus changes. How did this team pull itself out of a stretch where the NCAA Tournament picture felt shaky, not all that long ago? And finally, we tackle one of the more polarizing rotation questions: why Greg Gard continues to trust Jack Janicki to play significant minutes.
Let’s get into it.
Q: Has Austin Rapp started to turn a corner, why does his shooting matter so much, and is it fair to label him a bust?
-NebraskaBadger15
I think the short answer is yes, Austin Rapp is starting to turn a corner, and the why matters just as much as the numbers.
When Wisconsin brought Rapp in from Portland, the vision was pretty clear. He was recruited to add a dynamic frontcourt shooter, improve spacing, and make this offense harder to guard. A big man who can stretch the floor changes the geometry of everything they want to do.
Early on, though, the adjustment was real. Rapp opened the season in the starting lineup, and it became clear quickly that there was going to be a learning curve. Defensively, the speed and physicality poked some holes in his game. Offensively, when the shots weren’t falling, he needed to find other ways to impact the game. That’s not uncommon for a player making the leap from Portland to the Big Ten, but it did lead to a role change.
After starting the first seven games of the season, Rapp moved to the bench beginning with the Dec. 3 game against Northwestern. To his credit, that’s when he started to settle in — before a lower-body injury stalled that progress. He missed three games (UCLA, at Michigan, at Minnesota) and returned Jan. 17 against Rutgers. That game was far from Rapp’s best effort, but what followed has been far more telling.
Over the last four games, Rapp has averaged 9.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.0 assists per game — while shooting 55.5% from the field and 8-of-17 from 3-point range. That’s a significant uptick, even if his season-long 3-point percentage still sits at 31.5%. Often, water finds its level, and this stretch looks more like the shooter Wisconsin thought it was getting.
Why does that matter? Because when Rapp shoots well, the entire offense opens up. Greg Gard touched on that after the Ohio State win.
“It puts pressure on a defense in terms of when we’re able to stretch the floor with our bigs,” Gard said. “You saw that in the first half, our bigs stretched the floor, or he specifically did, and in the second half our guards – because the floor gets stretched and opened up and you have that threat of bigs shooting 3s – it opens up driving lanes more and spreads people out. It’s a counterpunch, so to speak, one with the other.”
When Rapp stretches the floor, it forces defenses to make uncomfortable choices. Bigs have to close out. Help defenders can’t sit in the lane. Driving lanes are more open for the guards to attack. As Gard put it, it becomes a counterpunch — the shooting threat from the frontcourt feeds everything else that Wisconsin’s coaching staff wants to do offensively.
But the most telling part of Gard’s comments wasn’t about shot-making at all. It was the progress Rapp has made in the other areas of the game.
“I’m more excited about the improvement that I saw in other facets of the game — playing physical, rebounding, coming over and chesting up on dribble penetration, putting his face in a battle for a rebound, things he wasn’t accustomed to,” Gard said. “He knew that for him to be consistently on the floor at this level here, he was going to have to do that stuff. And then, when you can make shots on top of that, it elevates your game. When you make 3’s from bigs, that’s a heck of a weapon.”
The encouraging part is that Rapp has taken to the coaching. He’s rebounding harder, defending better as part of the team concept, and understanding that his minutes aren’t tied exclusively to whether the ball goes in. When you pair that with shot-making, his impact is significant.
Wisconsin still needs more bench production from its frontcourt, and Rapp is one of the most obvious solutions on the roster. It’s easy to forget he’s a true sophomore navigating a major jump in competition. The flashes are becoming a lot more frequent, and the growth appears to be real.
If this version of Rapp holds — the one who rebounds, defends at a passable level, and makes defenses respect him from deep — the future remains very bright, and the ceiling for Wisconsin’s offense rises with him.
That doesn’t mean he’s been a bust, but it’s also fair to say he hasn’t fully met the expectations that followed him into the season. What is clear, though, is that he’s gotten better as the year has gone on and grown into the role that Wisconsin needs him to play. And if the areas he does well continue to pair with improved rebounding and defense, those traits can have a real impact on this team as everything starts to come together.
Q: Who is Wisconsin’s most important player at this point in the season that’s not named Nick Boyd or John Blackwell?
-Ryan from Oshkosh
For me, this one isn’t particularly difficult to answer. It’s Nolan Winter.
