The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Central Michigan Chippewas 88-61 on Monday, improving to 8-4 on the season and snapping a two-game losing streak.
It was a quality win that allowed the Badgers to play a ton of their young talent, but they left Monday with injuries to two of their stars.
John Blackwell didn’t suit up on Monday after entering the night with a questionable designation. As a result, freshman Hayden Jones got his first career start and had six points and four rebounds in 24 minutes of action.
What’s the latest on Blackwell?
“I think JB (John Blackwell) will be fine,” head coach Greg Gard said after the game. “I haven’t talked to my trainer. He just told me right before the game. [Blackwell] tried to warm up a little bit with our pregame stuff and didn’t feel [good enough] to where it was able to go. So we move on. It was a good opportunity for Hayden [Jones].”
That allowed for Gard to get an extended look at Jones, who continues to impress in practice.
“Hayden was again another guy that I want to continue to get more minutes,” Gard continued. “Based on what I’ve seen in practice, I think he has a really good feel for the game. I got to get him to stop dribbling to the right wing and picking the ball up first possession of every game.
“But I think he just has a really good feel and size, and put him on the wing more than maybe with the ball in his hands. But his feel within what we do is really good. He rebounds well for his size and, you know, he was going to play a lot tonight regardless of where JB was at.”
Nolan Winter, on the other hand, went down with what appeared to be an ankle injury with under six minutes left in the game and didn’t return.
“Obviously, because going down late, he was walking around,” Gard said about Winter. “He didn’t even know what happened. He says he’s tried to get out of the screen, and I haven’t seen the film if he stepped on somebody, but he said it’d be fine. And so we’ll get some time off here where he can get himself feeling good again and fine. But, he was about ready to be done anyway. I was ready to pull him, but you got to keep playing because things happen. He gets [the] tweaking ankle in the first five minutes or in the last five, so he’ll be fine.”
That’s an encouraging sign for both Badgers stars. Wisconsin now gets eight days off before their next game against Milwaukee next Tuesday. So, it’ll be an opportunity for both Blackwell and Winter to get healthy ahead of Big Ten play in January.
