The Wisconsin Badgers had a tough game on the road on Tuesday, losing 86-69 to the Ohio State Buckeyes. And the loss came with some more bad news, as wing Jack Janicki exited the game with a wrist injury and did not return.
On Friday, head coach Greg Gard revealed that Janicki will be out for the foreseeable future, and is out for the remainder of the regular season.
“Yeah, he’s going to be out for the foreseeable future,” Gard said. “I don’t know when he’ll be back. He had surgery yesterday, so he’s got a recovery process in front of him, breaking his wrist. So we were able to repair some things yesterday, and he’ll be out for a while. We’ll see if he’ll be back. We don’t know the length of the recovery.
“I don’t know [if he’ll return this season]. If it is [possible], it’ll be a little bit— it’ll be a while. I don’t foresee him back at all in the regular season. It’ll be after that if it happens at all.”
The news is a blow for the Badgers, who have primarily been going with an eight-man rotation with Janicki, Braeden Carrington, and Austin Rapp as the main players off the bench. With Janicki out, freshman guard Hayden Jones saw 15 minutes of action in the second half alone on Tuesday and played well in reserve, scoring six points and bringing down four rebounds.
Janicki hadn’t been much of a scorer for the Badgers, but was averaging 16.5 minutes per game for the Badgers. With him in the lineup, Wisconsin was able to play more small-ball with him at the four, giving it more versatility with its rotation.
Now, we’ll see how Gard and his staff adjust. Others who could see playing time are freshmen Zach Kinziger and Will Garlock.