Greg Gard reveals the one question that recruits asked in the transfer portal

The Wisconsin Badgers had quite an eventful transfer portal cycle this offseason, starting off with Australian point guard Owen Foxwell before landing George Washington guard Trey Autry, Miami (OH) wing Eian Elmer, and Hofstra center Victory Onuetu to round out their roster.

It was a slower start for Wisconsin, which had a quieter first week in the transfer portal as it evaluated the market for its top targets. That, paired with the departures of John Blackwell and Aleksas Bieliauskas, raised some questions as to how strong a roster the Badgers could build.

But, those questions were quickly answered as Wisconsin got three transfer portal commitments in the next week, filling their top holes as they looked to intentionally build a compatible roster once again.

Interestingly enough, though, there was one big question that recruits had for the Badgers’ staff as conversations were happening: Will Austin Rapp and Nolan Winter be back?

“Well, as we went through the recruiting process of Owen [Foxwell], Eian [Elmer], Victory [Onuetu], and Trey [Autry], they asked about if Rapp and Winter were coming back in the retention because they wanted to play with them,” Gard shared.

“I don’t remember which one it was, one of the perimeter players said, you guys have the best shooting front line coming back in the country in terms of how they can stretch the floor. And when you’re a player, you like to play with other really good players that can stretch the floor. I think Nick Boyd found that out, right? He had a lot of driving lines to the rim that were— there was a lot of space. That’s because you have shooting around it and you have great spacing, you have unselfish players. So good players complement other good players and they want to play with each other.”

As they’ve recruited the portal, Gard and his staff have seen maturity and knowledge from experienced transfers who know what they want around them on a team. And that was key in bringing this group together this offseason.

“That’s the nice thing about having experience,” Gard said. “And I think that’s the biggest difference we’ve noticed in portal and international recruiting where you have somebody not 17 or 18 years old. They see the game through a whole different lens because they’ve had so much more experience, and it’s more from a team standpoint of what makes a good team and what wins championships. And it takes younger players a while to figure that out and really learn through that.

“So that was something that, you know, Owen Foxwell wanted to make sure that Rapp [was here] and Aussie did a good job using his best Australian accent to help us with Owen to recruit him. So I don’t know if I’m going to start saying, “Good day, mate,” but we’ve got a lot of guys from the Pacific Southwest or wherever it is.”

Rapp and Winter were priorities for the Badgers this offseason, and both are back in the fold for the 2026-27 season, helping make up what should be a very different, but entertaining team for Wisconsin next season.