The 2024-25 college basketball season has been done for a while now, but ESPN wanted to circle back around and hand out some final evaluations for how every performed this year.
As you might expect, Greg Gard and the Wisconsin Badgers earned high marks.
College basketball writer Myron Medcalf released his Big Ten grades this week, and he gave UW an “A” for exceeding expectations this spring.
Greg Gard tends to do his best work amid doubts about his team. That was certainly true in 2024-25, when his Badgers finished in a tie for third place in the Big Ten and won 27 games after losing three of their top five scorers from the previous season, including Chucky Hepburn, who went on to earn AP All-American honorable mention honors at Louisville.
One media preseason poll picked Wisconsin to finish 12th in the conference standings. But John Tonje emerged as one of the biggest surprises of the college basketball season. Injuries had forced him to miss the bulk of 2023-24 at Missouri before he transferred to Wisconsin, where he earned AP second-team All-America honors (19.6 PPG).
– Myron Medcalf, ESPN
Wisconsin was one of five Big Ten teams to earn “A” grades from Medcalf, along with Illinois, Maryland, Michigan and Michigan State.
It was a strong year for the conference, which only made the Badgers deep Big Ten tournament run all the more impressive.
Part of the rational for the grade was how Gard’s team performed in spite of doubts about their abilities.
Wisconsin is already setting up to be in a similar position to start the 2025-26 season. They’re getting used to overachieving in Madison and might like to keep flying under the radar and suprising everyone with how well they do.
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