Chad

@harried_ry64852 @midwestern_ope Same.

@midwestern_ope 4 parents, 3 grandparents. And what do you mean "did"?!

Which plate design did your Midwest home have?

@PatSeann @IKE_Badgers Blame admissions. Why do you think Gard has so many international players now? They have the foreign language requirements and their transcripts pass muster. It's a good plan, but it's not necessarily going to work well in March. The rest are moving forward. UW is stuck.

@IKE_Badgers Blame the AD

Iowa is in the Elite 8 with a first year head coach and some Badgers fans are too scared to make a change? Couldn’t be us

@notbobkoz It's definitely multifactorial. I think there's currently an insurmountable systemic impediment related to admissions. Even the best strategies get undermined when recruits/transfers can't get admitted. Until they fix that, we should expect results similar to Northwestern, imo.

@___Chad__ I think my biggest problem is with McIntosh tbh Especially with football He only NOW seems to have a bit of urgency It’s multifactorial

Me in theory: Man NIL will take Wisconsin sports to the next level Reality: NIL made Indiana good at football and Nebraska good at basketball, two sports they sucked at, and we got worse Love that for us ♥️

@notbobkoz True, you didn't. I read that between the lines but I see how I could have interpreted that wrong. I think that not enough are understanding that admissions are a much bigger problem than NIL, but that could be what you were saying. Sorry if I got it wrong.

@___Chad__ Didn’t say it was

@TheHitMan1776 @sentdefender No backsies. No do overs. You guys chose this knowing full well what he is.

@sentdefender As a hard right conservative I can tell you that this is the kinda crap we hate. You can be Make America Great Again without being a Trump cult member.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Treasury Department is planning to add his signature to all denominations of the United States Dollar moving forward, which will mark the first time in history that the sitting president’s signature will appear on American Currency, with Trump’s signature expected to replace that of the U.S. Treasurer, Brandon Beach, sitting alongside his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s, several sources including Beach himself have confirmed to Vanity Fair.

@DohnJaly @EstateWill19959 @wisconsinsane @dekker There are 15 spots. It's a distinct possibility from year-to-year that there are no "star" in-state players that would fit into the current roster AND get admitted academically AND don't get swept away by a blue blood.

@EstateWill19959 @wisconsinsane @dekker Exactly. People acting like Bo regularly keeping in-state 5 stars in Wisconsin is crazy. For every Sam there’s like 10 Kons. And that likely isn’t changing with a new coach, especially being an UA school.

It's beyond frustrating to see incredible players born and raised in Wisconsin leave the state to shine elsewhere.

@Krenkekinder @scottieb72 @barryisthedon I'm just as frustrated by the end results and sought answers. Now I feel somewhat better, actually. I think we don't hear from those players because Gard and Co. don't bother recruiting them at all after an unsuccessful pre-screening. Silent rejections.

@___Chad__ @scottieb72 @barryisthedon You did some heavy lifting as well. Kudos! The New World Order in college athletics is still a minefield and there has to be some policing going on under the table. Why do we not hear concerns about players who would have transferred here but didn't?

College basketball is cruel in that 10 seconds of March basketball can, in the minds of most, totally wipe out everything good accomplished in 35 games over four+ months

@JonChep @ProMondo_Sports @DXContent @joelfoxwell Austin Rapp: Australia -> Portland -> Wisconsin Joel Foxwell: Same.

NEWS: Portland’s Joel Foxwell intends to enter the transfer portal, his agent Solomon Dech of @ProMondo_Sports tells DraftExpress. The Aussie freshman averaged 15.6 points, 6.5 assists, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.5 steals en route to 1st Team All-WCC honors. An absolute wizard with the ball in his hands, Foxwell brings juice and flash as a creator to go along with toughness, moxie, and basketball bloodlines. The NCAA’s 11th-leading assist man is poised to draw plenty of high-major interest as one of the top transfer-up PG’s hitting the market.

@SiegelHoops @TheFieldOf68 @barryisthedon @DraftExpress Oh. And Greppi (Italy). So 6 international already. Maybe 7 or 8 if they could get this guy and the German (Lastring).

@SiegelHoops @TheFieldOf68 @barryisthedon @DraftExpress If the Badgers landed him, they'd have 2 Aussies, 2 New Zealanders, and 2 Lithuanians. It's a minefield, navigating admissions at UW. Makes a lot of sense to go this route once there's an academic blueprint and coaching connections for a specific nationale.

Portland freshman PG Joel Foxwell will enter the transfer portal, per @DraftExpress. The Aussie freshman and First Team All-WCC member averaged 15.6 points, 6.5 assists, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.5 steals this season.

@wiscofan5 @its_connor_w Maybe this guy. If he signs. Which is highly probable at this point.

@its_connor_w They need a big that can guard someone, AB’s feet are stuck in cement

Potential 🦡🦡🦡 target.

@Petes279 @its_connor_w True. Especially if Winter stays. And there's a good chance that the 2nd Lithuanian signs. AB's old teammate. Dominykas Daubaris

@its_connor_w Unless someone decides to transfer out I highly doubt any front court piece is brought in

@Slimvanilla12 @Hassel_Chris Greg? You there?

@Hassel_Chris Quit crying. Your little run is over. Cant keep up with the big boys

Another one

@JonnyRoot_ @GippatheGoat @HawkeyeBBFan Of course that should have been an ejection, Jeremy. He tackled a player at near full speed from behind on a basketball court. Justify your position that it shouldn't be.

@GippatheGoat @HawkeyeBBFan Shouldn’t be an ejection but should 💯% have been a flagrant and free throws for Iowa

Florida player absolutely bulldozes an Iowa player and the refs don’t call anything… Should have been a technical for sure. (HT @HawkeyeBBFan)

@ChiBadgPartDeux I was referring specifically to his ability to land some high quality transfers year after year despite the university's very unique academic minefield and NIL challenges. Good coach. Great recruiter, despite what most seem to believe.

@___Chad__ I would not label Greg Gard a stud. Good coach.

🦡The Wisconsin NIL Bill Passed, and It's a Great Day to Be a Badger Fan 🏈 DISCLAIMER: Lots of words. And then more words. If you're not supremely interested in this topic, I'd skip. The Wisconsin NIL bill passed the state Senate on March 17th in a 17-16 vote, allocating $14.6 million annually in state funds to cover UW-Madison's athletic facility debt service. The reaction from a segment of Badger fans has been predictable — taxpayer money flowing to an athletic department feels wrong on its face, particularly during a stretch of disappointing football. That frustration is understandable. But a lot of the argument against this bill rests on weak premises. First, some context on the numbers being debated. The $757 million figure represents the total annual economic footprint of UW Athletics — meaning the full ripple effect of the program on the state economy, including fan spending on hotels, bars, restaurants, and travel on top of what flows through the athletic department's own books — per the 2022 ESI study commissioned by UW-Madison [1], which also found the program generates $16 million in annual state tax revenue. The $280 million figure that has circulated in this debate is a separate number entirely — the estimated annual statewide economic loss if football continues to decline, per the UW Crowe Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy [2], driven by reduced attendance, gameday spending, and tourism. Those are two very different figures describing two very different things. This bill does not create new facility debt. It shifts who services existing debt — moving it from athletic program operating revenue to a state general appropriation. While that shift does create a new taxpayer obligation, it functions as a highly leveraged investment in the state's most visible tourism and marketing engine. It also frees up program dollars to compete under the new House settlement framework. Under that settlement, schools must now direct institutional operating dollars toward a $20.5 million annual revenue sharing cap for athletes. Wisconsin was already spending a significant portion of its operating revenue servicing facility debt, leaving less to deploy toward that cap than competitors whose facility costs were already subsidized. This bill corrects a structural disadvantage, not a coaching one. A central premise of the case for this bill is that winning produces economic activity. Not just at Camp Randall, but across the state. Bars and restaurants filling up on Saturdays. Watch parties. Gear purchases. Travel. Badger-related transactions rippling through communities that never appear in a stadium attendance count. Every sports fan understands this intuitively because we have all lived it. We invest more in good teams. We show up more, we spend more, we care more. You do not need a commissioned economic study to acknowledge what losing is doing to Badger-related business activity in real time. The data supports it anyway — peer-reviewed research from Ohio State finds that each additional win increases a program's total revenue by over $800,000 [3], and Wisconsin's own Crowe Center data shows season ticket sales dropped from 42,000 to 38,000 after just one bad season [2]. That is observed behavior, not a projection. Even if you want to challenge the methodology of the economic studies — and there are legitimate critiques of consultant-commissioned impact reports — you still have to reckon with the directional truth. A better football program means more eyeballs, more transactions, and more economic activity distributed across the state. Sports fandom has worked that way across major college and pro sports markets since sports fandom became a thing. The relationship between resources and winning is also documented. A study of Power Five programs spanning 2005 to 2022 found that facility spending correlates more strongly with on-field success than coaching salaries or recruiting budgets combined [4]. Research from Athletic Director University supports the full cycle: better resources produce better recruiting and facilities, which produce better rosters, which produce wins, which produce revenue, which get reinvested into the next cycle [5]. That cycle runs in both directions. Wisconsin has been in the downward version of it. This bill interrupts that trajectory. Fully funding the $20.5 million cap does not guarantee Big Ten championships in an era where peers are doing the same, but failing to fund it makes sustained relevance materially less likely. On roster spending specifically — the direct NIL-to-wins link is still maturing in the academic literature given how recently the framework changed, but the directional evidence is clear. CBS Sports analysis of the 2025 College Football Playoff field found the biggest spenders predictably occupied the top of the bracket [6]. More importantly, peer-reviewed research published in Applied Economics concluded that if current NIL spending patterns persist as absolute spending levels rise, the talent gap between elite programs and the rest of the Power Five will widen materially over time [7]. Wisconsin cannot afford to find out what that widening looks like from the wrong side of it. Is anyone really surprised by any of this? A fair critic will note that the correlation between resources and wins runs in both directions — successful programs attract more investment, not just the other way around. That is true, and worth acknowledging. But in public policy arguments, waiting for perfect causal proof before acting is rarely a viable standard. What matters here is the asymmetry of risk. If this investment does not move the needle as much as the data suggests, Wisconsin is out $14 million annually on a program that was already generating $757 million in state economic activity. If the data is right and Wisconsin opts out, the talent gap widens, the downward cycle accelerates, and the economic and competitive damage compounds in ways that become structurally difficult to reverse. The downside of acting is modest and recoverable. The downside of inaction is not. This entire argument is deliberately coach-agnostic. CBS Sports data shows Wisconsin under Paul Chryst had the lowest recruiting spending in the nation — under $400,000 per season [8]. This bill does not bet on any particular coach. It raises the floor and ceiling for whoever is on the sideline. Money does not transform a limited coach into an elite one, but it gives any coach materially better tools than Wisconsin has provided in years. If the ceiling still is not good enough, you find someone else — and that someone else will be operating with a structurally stronger program than the one that existed before this bill passed. The argument that Wisconsin's alumni base or the university's endowment should have covered this gap misunderstands how both work. University endowments are overwhelmingly restricted funds — designated by donors for specific academic purposes like research, scholarships, and faculty. They are not a discretionary pool available to the athletic department. And under the House settlement, revenue sharing must flow as institutional operating dollars, not donor collective contributions. Alumni generosity and institutional operating budget are structurally separate under the new rules. One cannot substitute for the other regardless of the size of either. So here is the actual question worth asking. If we agree that winning produces more Badger-related economic activity across the state — and the data and our lived expeirence as sports fans say we should — and if we agree that better-resourced programs raise a coach's floor and ceiling — and the data says we should — then what is the most plausible downside scenario for this bill? A taxpayer obligation that ends up closer to budget neutral than advertised and a marginal improvement in the probability of sustained competitive football in Wisconsin. For $14 million a year, this bill meaningfully increases the likelihood of long stretches of virtuous cycles — wins producing revenue, revenue producing better rosters, better rosters producing more wins. It increases the probability that Badger fans get some relief on Saturdays from all the bullshit in the world. Given everything this state's football program generates for Wisconsin's economy and quality of life, that is a rational bet. So yes — it is a great day to be a Badger fan. This bill does not fix everything, and next September is not guaranteed to look different from the last few. But Wisconsin just made a rational, evidence-backed decision to stop bringing a knife to a gunfight. The structural disadvantage quietly undermining this program for years has been addressed. The tools are on the table. What gets built with them is still to be determined — but the program now has a legitimate shot at the kind of sustained success that fills bars across the state, sells out Camp Randall, and gives Badger fans something to look forward to every fall. That is worth celebrating. #OnWisconsin References [1] UW-Madison Athletics Economic Impact Study, ESI Econsult Solutions (2022) — uwbadgers.com/news/2022/11/1… [2] UW Crowe Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy, Football Losses and State Economic Impact (2025) — dailycardinal.com/article/2025/1… [3] Logan & Bergman, Revenue Per Quality of College Football Recruit, Ohio State University (2020) — economics.osu.edu/sites/default/… [4] Samford University Sports Analytics, Spending Smart: Power Five Football Programs and the Effect on Wins, 2005–2022 — samford.edu/sports-analyti… [5] Athletic Director University, Analysis of College Football Return on Investment — athleticdirectoru.com/articles/analy… [6] CBS Sports, College Football Playoff 2025 NIL Spending Power Analysis — cbssports.com/college-footba… [7] Applied Economics, The Impact of NIL Contracts on Student-Athlete College Choice (2024) — tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… [8] CBS Sports, College Football Recruiting Expenses by Conference (2022) — cbssports.com/college-footba…

@ChiBadgPartDeux I dug in a little in a back-and-forth here: x.com/i/status/20358…

@ChiBadgPartDeux This is an excellent post. Thanks, Corey. Would you consider doing something similar regarding UW's unique admissions/academics situation? It's complicated and most of us don't fully understand it, but it's just as important as NIL to the greater discussion.

@Krenkekinder @scottieb72 @barryisthedon BTW, the reason Wisconsin landed those guys is because Gard is a stud. Same with establishing the Lithuania connection and now Australia too. Like I said, he's done some heavy lifting on the recruitment front.

@Krenkekinder @scottieb72 @barryisthedon Many can't transfer to UW. There are rules. And they have a 15 window for the transfer portal. UW can take two weeks or more to review transcripts, them deny them. Gard made a GM position last year to basically pre-screen every possible recruit/transfer. Most aren't a fit.