Madison, Wis. — After the Wisconsin Badgers’ home matchup against the Detroit Mercy on Sunday, they’ll begin their full Big Ten schedule.

A team’s performance against their conference opponents from January through March will often define their season. For the past few Badger teams, this has been when the wheels have fallen off.

Plenty of eyes are on head coach Greg Gard and veterans like Steven Crowl, Max Klesmit and even newcomer John Tonje. But the most underrated factor in their success down the stretch isn’t even in their starting lineup.

Senior Kamari McGee has become one of the Badgers’ most important players this season. He’s their primary spark plug off the bench and averages 22.3 minutes per game, not far off from starters Nolan Winter (22.0) and Crowl (23.8).

“He changes the tempo of a game on both ends of the floor. And he really enjoys coming in here and giving us that shot in the arm,” Gard said on Wednesday.

It took time for McGee to step into such a vital role. The 6-foot, 181 pound guard from Racine transferred to Wisconsin after a strong freshman season at UW-Green Bay, with an abundance of energy and not many refined skills.

“I think the thing for Kamari is… he’s really comfortable at excelling in his role. Obviously that role has grown. We talk all the time about, ‘Remember where you were when you first transferred from Green Bay?’ I had a hard time putting him on the floor because everything was 100 miles an hour and out of control and [the] ball was flying everywhere and we had to learn a few things,” Gard said Wednesday.

As he matured, McGee was able to control his intensity, slowly turning into someone that Gard could trust in important moments.

He experienced a major step-up in efficiency from his sophomore to junior seasons (28.0 field goal percentage to 54.3), albeit without a major improvement in actual production (1.3 points per game to 2.1).

Yet it’s his strides this season that have been truly immense. He’s nearly tripled his minutes per game (8.4 to 22.3) and points (6.4) all while shooting 56.0 percent from the field and 54.5 percent from distance.

His meteoric ascension came when the Badgers needed it most.

The 2024 offseason featured the departure of, arguably, last season’s three most important players in Chucky Hepburn, A.J. Storr and Tyler Wahl.

Hepburn, a three-year starter, was the Badgers’ assist leader and primary ball handler for all three of his seasons.

After he transferred to Louisville in the offseason, Gard failed to find an adequate replacement at point guard

Camren Hunter was brought in via the transfer portal but hasn’t been able to find consistency due to poor health. Neither of the two starting guards, John Blackwell and Klesmit, are true point guards.

McGee isn’t necessarily a true point guard in the sense Hepburn was — his 1.8 assists per game are fifth on the team — but his mixture of aggression and unselfishness tends to light a spark and create space for his teammates.

Prior to the beginning of the season, Gard expressed his confidence in McGee’s ability to take greater control of the offense.

“Kamari McGee has been steady. Just really consistent, really vocal, he’s done an awesome job of leading. He’s understood what he can do and he’s understood what he can’t do. He knows when to step on the gas and when not to. He avoids trouble a lot, which was sometimes a fault of his in the past. He’s done a really good job of the command he’s taken, the voice he’s had, and he’s obviously a menace defensively,” Gard said on local media day.

The departure of Hepburn and Wahl, two veterans who had a combined 265 games played and 224 starts with the Badgers, also left a leadership void.

Seniors like Crowl and Klesmit were forced to step into greater roles, both on and off the court. But, to McGee, this wasn’t much of an adjustment.

“I don’t feel like it was much of a change. Ever since I stepped foot on the campus, I’ve been a pretty vocal leader. So the only thing that really changed was the minutes,” McGee said Wednesday.

“He’s always vocal. He’s always here to pick people up, just bringing the energy every day. On the court, in the huddles, telling us where we’re at, what we need to be doing. He’s a great voice to listen to. There’s a sense of calmness when he’s out there commanding us and leading us,” Winter said.

Despite his early confidence, McGee becoming one of the most important players on the team has given his voice even more weight.

“Experience is always the best way to grow leadership. You have to be here to have done it. You can’t talk about things that everybody else is supposed to do when you don’t do them yourself. So, typically, leadership falls in the laps of older guys because they’ve been here and have done it more and have some street credit, so to speak, with their teammates.

“That’s the thing, you have to have credibility with your teammates before you can really open your mouth and get any mileage out of it to really have an impact. They see how Kamari works and how he plays and, obviously, [with] his experience, he is a voice. He is an important voice. I hear him all the time at the end of practice and in huddles, in locker rooms. He’s very positive, but he also sends terrific messages to the group and individually. He’s not afraid to call somebody out and then rally everybody together,” Gard said.

McGee’s growth both on and off the court has helped Wisconsin to another strong start.

With just one game to go before the full Big Ten schedule begins, the Badgers currently own a 9-3 overall record, while averaging the fifth-most points per game in the Big Ten (81.9).

But, as any coach or player will admit, success in non-conference play doesn’t always transfer to the rest of the regular season.

“The difference [with non-conference games] is it’s really hard to gameplan, because you don’t know what a team will throw at you outside of your conference. Just because you don’t really see them every year. You don’t see them often. It’s different just trying to prepare for each game.

“In the Big Ten, you see those teams year after year so you kind of know what their game plans are,” McGee said.

Early season success has been common for Gard’s recent Badger teams. Yet it’s their performance through the remainder of the year that’s haunted them.

They began last year with a 16-4 record, then finished the regular season 19-12, followed by a first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament at the hands of James Madison. The year before, the Badgers got off to an 11-2 start, then finished the regular season at 16-13, failing to even make the tournament.

A major factor in last season’s fall-off were some key injuries, notably to McGee. He broke his toe in late January, which sidelined him for 10 games and affected his play for the remainder of the season.

The Badgers’ record last season when McGee played 10+ minutes was 9-1, and 13-13 otherwise.

“I can do a lot of things. I can’t control injuries,” Gard said on local media day.

“The McGee and Blackwell injuries, there’s no doubt, there’s a common denominator that put us off the tracks that we couldn’t quite get back to, it’s those two things. Nothing else changed. So when you look back and watch games and ask what was different, I think those two things [stand out].”

The late season drop-off and eventual first round loss sparked some social media debate over Gard’s job security. The strong start to 2024 has extinguished many of those demands, but if history repeats itself and the Badgers experience another major decline, Gard’s seat could heat up once again.

Athletic director Chris McIntosh has already fired two head coaches. He’s made his standards clear.

The greatest weight rests on the shoulders of the top producers like Tonje, Blackwell and Klesmit, but Gard will have to put an inordinate amount of faith in a 6-foot sixth man.

If McGee maintains his energy and leadership, he could be the difference-maker that helps the Badgers finish a season as well as they start it for the first time in years.

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