NFL
By: Melo Williams
John Blackwell G for the Wisconsin Badgers men’s basketball team returns for his junior year and prepared to lead the Badgers back to the top half of the Big Ten conference and another NCAA Tournament appearance hoping for a deeper run.
This season, Blackwell is projected to be the Badgers leading scorer and one of the top scorers in both the Big Ten conference and college basketball. His growth and development as a player and teammate since his freshman season have him primed to handle the job.
John Blackwell freshman season, he was fortunate to be around vets like Tyler Wahl, Steven Crowl, Kamari McGee, Max Klesmit and Chucky Hepburn. Players that helped his transition from HS to Power 5 college basketball, teaching and showing him Badgers culture and the system, and how to win.
Blackwell was a key player off the bench, averaging 8.0 points and 3.2 rebounds with four Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors, the first Badger to do so since Nigel Hayes in 2013-14. Blackwell was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team (2024).
As a sophomore, Blackwell became a full-time starter and was the team’s second-leading scorer after John Tonje averaging 15.8 points along with 5.1 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game.
Blackwell set a career high 32 points vs Iowa, led the team in scoring 11 times with four 25+ point performances, with back-to-back double-doubles against Washington (24 Pts and 10 Rebs) and Minnesota (25 Pts and 11 Rebs) earning 2025 All-Big Ten Honorable Mention and being named to the 2025 Big Ten All-Tournament Team.
After last season ended, Blackwell declared for the NBA Draft but after going through the process, ultimately withdrawing his name from the draft, deciding to return to Wisconsin for unfinished business.
Now, Blackwell is one of the older leaders of the Badgers with Nolan Winter and Isaac Gard after losing key players like Steven Crowl, John Tonje, Max Klesmit, Kamari McGee, Carter Gilmore, and Markus Ilver.
Badgers HC and his coaching staff did a great job reshaping the roster with big time commitments from the 2025 freshman class (4-star Zach Kinziger De Pere HS, 3-star Will Garlock- Middleton HS, Hayden Jones-New Zealand) and in the transfer portal (Nick Boyd-San Diego St, Andrew Rohde-Virginia, Austin Rapp-Portland) all who is expected to round out the starting line up with John Blackwell and Nolan Winter.
I asked Blackwell how does he feel his role will change this season, “More of a leadership role, it’s my third year now. I was a leader last year but a young leader I still had the vets still.” Offensively Blackwell said “I think I’ll be more off the ball this year.”
Listen: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/b30g9m61n2o31r8naggfg/John-Blackwell-On-New-Role.m4a?rlkey=b91qwlxwqcmd3fi6gf3haptac&st=rtjajarc&dl=0
Though Blackwell is the Badgers projected scoring leader he is excited and confident about his new backcourt teammates around him that can score the ball just as well saying Nick Boyd, Andrew Rohde, Jack Janicki, and Zach Kinziger will all give their all and will contribute just as much “If it’s my night, they gonna let me rock out, if it’s their night, I’m gonna let them rock out.”
Greg Gard on Blackwell “He’s come with a more dominant mentality, as you can see when we play. He has the ability to takeover and really dominate games.” “I think the confidence level, whether the NBA experience was what brought that out of him or if it’s just going into year three, you can see he’s bigger physically, he’s leaner, he’s really trimmed up, and he’s cut in some areas that he didn’t have the definition in before.”
Now that the 2025-26 basketball season is just weeks away from starting Blackwell said “I feel like there are things I haven’t accomplished in college yet.” “I want to boost my stock. I want to be a first-rounder next year and I want to keep getting better. But ultimately, I want to win. I fell short of my goal, but I want to be in Wisconsin history forever.”
