One of the Badgers’ most reliable, effective, and all-around gifted players this season has been John Blackwell. At the moment, Blackwell leads the Badgers in minutes played, field goals made, points scored, and assists.
Blackwell shot 41.3% from three in January, good for fourth place in the Big Ten in terms of points per game. Among Big Ten players who made three or more 3-point attempts each game, this notably effective percentage was good enough to rank fourteenth.
Additionally, Blackwell has two 30-point and five 20-point performances this season. In addition to being able to score goals on a regular basis, he can also go off on big performances.
As a recent high school graduate, Blackwell was not seen as a highly sought-after recruit. With a score of 88.4, he is typically regarded as a strong three-star talent. However, his ranking placed him outside of both the top 25 for his position and the top 200 nationwide.
In the long run, Wisconsin was the only “Power Four” school interested, although these aren’t awful overall. Blackwell played on a full roster his senior year after graduating from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan’s Brother Rice High School. Curtis Williams Jr. and Xavier Thomas were his teammates.
It becomes a bit more obvious how Blackwell may have fallen through the cracks when you consider all of this potential and the fact that he is the smallest of the three, an unjust stereotype that damages a player’s value year after year.
Sonny Wilson, who won Gatorade Michigan Boys Basketball Player of the Year, Associated Press All-State accolades, and First-Team Detroit Free Press, dominated the high school basketball scene in the Detroit region while attending the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy.
However, it was one of the few occasions in Wilson’s high school career when he didn’t appear to be the greatest player on the court every time he played Blackwell.
As a high school basketball player, Michigan State and the University of Michigan are absurdly difficult to get into. Along with three additional four stars who all placed in the top 125 nationally, including two in the top 50, Michigan State recruited the eleventh-best recruit in the nation in the class of 2023.
In contrast, Michigan’s roster was full. They only brought in one recruit, a four-star who was ranked in the top 150 nationally.
In light of this, it appeared to be the ideal chance for Wisconsin to jump in and sign a young player who was undervalued, basically for nothing. Blackwell had offers from a number of schools, including Toledo, Oakland University, Northern Illinois, Eastern Michigan, and Central Michigan, prior to the Wisconsin offer.
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Wisconsin is the linebacker U. In the AP end-of-season honors, NFL players shine.
Therefore, if a school like Wisconsin is interested in a candidate and makes a concerted effort to attract them, it will be much simpler for Wisconsin to win the recruiting war. After some perseverance, Wisconsin was able to persuade Blackwell to enroll and commit, and they haven’t had the slightest remorse about it.
During his first year, Blackwell was named to the Big Ten All-first Team and earned Big Ten Freshman of the Week four times. He was also selected to the Greenbrier Tip-Off All-Tournament Team this season.
One may describe it as a stroke of luck or as head coach Greg Gard’s outstanding recruitment. It was probably a combination of Gard’s great discovery and a little bit of luck.
Anyone in the Detroit area who watched high school basketball during Blackwell’s time at Brother Rice was aware of his extraordinary skill. It has been entertaining to see this unfold as Blackwell keeps becoming bigger, more impressive, and more like he is destined for greatness.
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