BadgerExtra columnist Jim Polzin looks back on the career of former Wisconsin men's basketball coach Bo Ryan, who will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in August.
There was only about three minutes of "what if?" conversation before University of Wisconsin men's basketball point guard signee Daniel Freitag's situation became a reality.
Freitag saw the rumors that Badgers point guard Chucky Hepburn might soon enter the transfer portal first on Twitter early Thursday afternoon, and he and his mother went back and forth wondering.
"We were talking about like, 'Wouldn't it be crazy if these like these rumors were true?'" Freitag said. "'Man, I wonder what that would mean for me.'"
The 2024 dynamic lead guard was recruited to be the Badgers' point guard of the future — but first, that was supposed to come with a year of learning from Hepburn. Yet "30 seconds" after the news of Hepburn entering the portal was confirmed on social media, Wisconsin coach Greg Gard called Freitag. Things have now changed.
"Kind of really just harped on the whole, 'Make sure you're ready, it's coming fast and there's opportunity in the air,'" Freitag said. "So I told him, 'I'm all for it. I'm getting ready and I've been getting ready.'"
That wasn't the last call that Freitag would get that day, with Wisconsin assistant Joe Krabbenhoft also chatting with him later Thursday afternoon. What unfolded Thursday for the Badgers marked a low moment for the program, losing a point guard that started 103 games over three seasons right as he was realizing the best basketball of his career.
But for Freitag it was the closest comparison he could make to the day he committed to Wisconsin, his phone blowing up nonstop. Though Badgers loyalists were quick to pass the proverbial key to the program to Freitag, the incoming freshman had a more realistic viewpoint — "I think like just throwing me in the fire with nobody older, wiser than me would kind of be silly," Freitag said.
There are a several players like that on the Badgers' roster, including rising senior guard Kamari McGee, whom Freitag texted throughout Thursday as they both recover from surgery to repair lower-body injuries (McGee to his foot, Freitag a broken ankle). Freitag underwent successful surgery on April 5, expecting that he'll be fully mobile in "a few weeks" and returning to playing basketball by the time Wisconsin reconvenes for summer workouts.
But Badgers staff was also forthcoming about its efforts to reach out to point guards in the transfer portal, mainly those with just a year of eligibility remaining so that Freitag can maintain the multi-year situation at Wisconsin he expected entering Thursday. But Freitag doesn't expect that would change anything.
Even he acknowledged that, initially, he was under the impression that he'd learn behind Hepburn. But Freitag said Thursday that the Badgers have been consistent in that he'd learn beside him. So adding a new point guard to the mix wouldn't change that, and suddenly Wisconsin is in need of guards to score on the wings, too, with the departure of AJ Storr for Kansas.
But if it's him who has to take over the primary facilitating duties (as Hepburn did in his freshman year in 2021-22), he said he's ready for that. In his junior year at Bloomington Jefferson High School in Minneapolis, Freitag was the No. 1 option. Sometimes the No. 2 and No. 3 option, he noted.
But after transferring to Breck High School in Golden Valley, Minnesota, this season, he was able to play off the ball, on the ball, facilitate, defend — do things that aren't scoring to impact his team's winning in an eventual MSHSL Class AA state championship-winning season.
"I think that puts me in pretty good shape for whatever role they're looking for me to have," Freitag said. "Whatever they want me to take on, I can take on. I'm welcoming whatever role with open arms as big as possible."
There, of course, remains some unanswered questions for the Badgers in light of Hepburn's departure. Wisconsin was already in the process of trying to replace Storr and graduate forward Tyler Wahl. Hepburn's departure means 60% of its starting lineup from a season ago will now change.
But Freitag said he still has all the stability he needs to remain fully committed to the Badgers.
"Honestly, as long as Gard's there, I'm there," Freitag said. "I don't see a situation where if Gard is still there — and he's still kind of handling me and talking to me the same way he has been for the last three years — that I decide to walk away."
Photos: Chucky Hepburn's Wisconsin men's basketball career