College basketball is almost officially upon us.
With Big Ten Media Days having concluded, and tip-off less than a month out with exhibition games already underway, we’re racing towards the start of what promises to be one of the most unique seasons the sport has ever seen.
Why? All across the country, coaches have no idea if certain players and in some cases like LSU, large swaths of their roster will be eligible for 2026-27.
Programs across the nation are looking for additional years of eligibility out of players who graduated high school in 2022 and were excluded from the “five-for-five” eligibility ruling, effectively seeing their college careers cut short while most other athletes get them extended.
Wisconsin is no different. The Badgers are working to keep guard Braeden Carrington on the roster for 2026-27, who spent his fourth year of college ball in Madison after previous stops at Minnesota and Tulsa.
Carrington would be a huge addition to a roster that already looks deep, diverse and improved defensively. Last season, the guard averaged 8.3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists while canning 40.1% of his threes on 5.1 attempts per game. Carrington was Wisconsin’s best three-point shooter statistically and his role as a bench sniper was critical in the Badgers’ dynamic offense.
“He’s been in everything,” Gard said at the Badgers’ local media day. “He’s been with us all the time. As it sits today, he’s eligible.”
Still, that could all change on Oct. 20, when a court hearing tied to Carrington’s eligibility was pushed back to. So while if the guard is going to be eligible remains a great question, the lack of clarity also begs the question of how Wisconsin is going about its business knowing it might lose a player it currently expects to have on its roster who proved to be pretty important last season.
“The era that we’re in has helped me modify my approach to things, the transient nature of the roster. You have to be more fluent. You have to be able to evolve. We knew with Braeden it was going to be a roller coaster. Regardless of what happens on the 20th. We’re prepared for that,” Gard said.
“Fortunately from our standpoint, this didn’t come from out of left field. We’ve had preparation with other roster uncertainty at times; who’s back, who’s not back. It puts you in a different state of mind where you’re more accepting of the uncertainty.”
Coaching college athletics in 2026 means a good bit of uncertainty regardless. But Gard says the Badgers have embraced the, as he put it, transient nature of roster building in this day and age.
Obviously, Wisconsin has a plan regardless of the outcome of Carrington’s eligibility, preparing for any and all possibilities. But Wisconsin may not have final clarity and closure about its roster until two weeks before tip-off.
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