Wisconsin 2019-20 basketball preview: Forwards/Centers

The 2019-20 men's basketball season starts for the Wisconsin Badgers on Nov. 5 in Sioux Falls against No. 20 Saint Mary's. With less than a week before tipoff, BadgerBlitz.com begins its positional previews in looking at UW's "big men."

Wisconsin will have to replace two big men in Ethan Happ and Charles Thomas.

Happ finished his UW career as one of the program's all-time greats, becoming the first Badger to claim three-time first-team All-Big Ten honors. As seen in his long and illustrious UW profile, he ranks first in school history in rebounds (1,217), blocks (154), double-doubles (52), offensive rebounds (360) and field goals (88) third in school history in points (2,130). Of course, he is No. 3 in points (2,130) and assists (423) and No. 2 in steals (217). He will leave big shoes to fill, both literally and figuratively.

For Thomas, though he necessarily did not make a huge imprint, he ended his Wisconsin playing days participating in 109 games. In his senior season, he averaged 1.6 points, 1.3 rebounds in 5.2 minutes per contest.

*True freshman Tyler Wahl: Three-star recruit by Rivals.com, No. 35 small forward in 2019 class

*Redshirt junior Courtland Quevas (walk-on)

*Redshirt junior Samad Qawi (walk-on)

Last season, Happ led the team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and free throw attempts. He also ranked second in blocked shots.

As seen above, Wisconsin returns just two players -- Reuvers and Aleem Ford -- in the frontcourt that actually played in 2018-19, and the former flashed during critical times when Happ got in foul trouble on the road.

Reuvers scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds at Maryland on Jan. 14, then two games later notched his first career double-double with a 22-point, 10-rebound performance in Champaign against Illinois. The Minnesota native also tallied 14 and six in a Big Ten Tournament win against Nebraska in March.

Unlike Happ, Reuvers has range in shooting and could emerge as another tall Wisconsin target that could hurt you both inside and out. He drained 37.5 percent of his attempts from three-point land last season, but he also led the team in blocks (60).

"Nate's done a really good job with making sure that he's ready to step up," redshirt unior Micah Potter said on Wednesday. "He's performed in practice and in scrimmages and all over the place, whether it be shooting the ball, finishing inside. He had a couple of finishes earlier today in practice, where he's done a really good job of getting his feet set, pump faking, and going up strong with the jump hook.

"I think that's probably the biggest thing that he's developed over the last couple of weeks is his ability to finish jump hooks rather than doing fade away jumpers, and that's really increased his game and his ability to score."

The key area for growth will be Reuvers' ability to become more of an inside presence in rebounding, where he averaged just under four per contest.

If Potter cannot play, Reuvers and Ford will be the main players needing to answer the call in this area. Last season, Happ led the team in rebounds (10.1) and free throw attempts (161).

The two aforementioned juniors averaged about six rebounds per contest and attempted just 45 free throws combined during the 2018-19 campaign (41 and four, respectively). For the latter stat, the entire team will have to work to get to the rim more to draw fouls.

When speaking with Potter on the BadgerBlitz.com Podcast, the forward discussed how both Reuvers and Ford have developed in particular areas. In the previous section, we highlighted the former's potential ability to finish offensively, but with Ford, it appears a combination of things could allow him to be another breakout candidate for 2019-20.

"I think the biggest thing is he didn't have an injury," Potter said. "He's healthy, he's got his confidence back because of that, and as many people have talked about, the way he changed his body over the off-season from even more from what he did before. I think it's pretty obvious he looks a lot more cut, a lot more defined.

"He's really put a lot of work in and with that, comes a lot more confidence. The more strength you have, the more confidence you have playing inside, banging around on defense, banging in the post, all of that kind of stuff."

BadgerBlitz.com has spoke ad nauseam about this topic in the past week, so this will be short and sweet (and you can view head coach Greg Gard's comments in the video below or in our press conference highlights post here).

This is a key question though, as UW awaits to hear back about its appeal to the initial decision by the NCAA to deny Potter the ability to play immediately at the start of the season.

Like Reuvers, the 6-foot-10 forward can provide an inside-outside game that has become typical of Wisconsin big men, and he has game experience with his two years at Ohio State before deciding to transfer. At the moment, he is eligible to return to competitive action on Dec. 21 against Milwaukee.

Even before the Potter news dropped earlier in October, Wahl likely figured to be in some role in the rotation for Gard and his team. In this Wednesday's practice, the Minnesota native did not look out of place as a first-year Badger and drained a couple of three-pointers during some team work.

Earlier this month, assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft praised Wahl in comparing him to "like a sponge."

"He picks things up really, really quick, and I think that's very important as a young guy if you want to be on the floor," Krabbenhoft said on Oct. 11. "You don't have to harp and harp and harp and go over something three, four times with him until he gets it right. He may fail. He may do something wrong, but it's usually just once, and then he figures it out pretty quick so that's how you get on the floor. You're a good listener and a quick learner and he's got lots of questions, but he's done a great job."

"I think he's said it and a lot of people have publicly, he's just willing to do what most guys aren't. Luckily we have a team of guys like that for the most part, but Tyler really epitomizes wearing that. He's a worker. He does some of the dirty work. He's just one of those type of guys, and that's why our guys like playing with him and they want him on the floor."

Potter's absence could affect how Hedstrom, now a second-year player, finds time on the court. When asked on Monday about his thoughts on the depth of the team if the Ohio State transfer cannot play, Gard mentioned he received "a lot of answers to that on Saturday" in a closed scrimmage with Iowa State.

"I liked what I saw," Gard said. "Reuvers actually picked up two first half fouls, and I was planning to get Joe some more experience. I got him more sooner than I thought I would, and it wasn’t all perfect, but he did some good things. I was put in a position where I had to play him, like I said, a little sooner than I planned to in that first half, and we were just fine.

“There’s different combinations. We can be so, I’ve used four at the five some in this preseason in practice just because of the versatility of this group and the mobility. The day of position-less offense has led to position-less defense which you’re switching a lot of things, so this group with the experience that’s there and the mobility and flexibility, allow for a lot of different combinations to be on the floor.”

In Potter's eyes, and as noted in our "Five Storylines" post published earlier on Friday, the biggest thing for 7-foot, 240-pound Hedstrom has been his ability "to focus on keeping it simple."

"I know a lot of time with freshmen, and obviously he's a redshirt, but he didn't play at all last year," Potter said. "He was on the scout team, so being in a situation where he's actually playing for the first time, a lot of times guys can get kind of psyched out of their wits a little bit. He's done a very good job of controlling that and keeping it simple, not trying to do too much. Because of that, he's been able to perform at a high level -- whether it be rebounding, playing defense, or getting dump offs and pump faking, getting fouls or getting little finishes around the hoop -- he's done a really good job with that."