Wisconsin Basketball: Can the Badgers land the Hauser brothers?

Since the news broke that the Hauser brothers are transferring, there has been a considerable amount of excitement that they could join the Wisconsin Basketball program.

When news broke that Sam and Joey Hauser were transferring from Marquette, I think a lot of Wisconsin basketball fans had the same questions pop into their heads.

Could they come to Wisconsin?

I think the answer would be yes. Now I’m not saying it’s guaranteed going to happen. But I think it is a definite possibility they could land in Madison.

As Sam Land said in his initial article about the Hauser brothers, Sam wanted to go to Wisconsin, but it never happened, possibly causing some bad blood between the Wisconsin basketball program and the Hausers.

Many think that played a role in Joey choosing to play with his brother at Marquette rather than at Wisconsin, even though he was highly coveted by the Badgers. However, there have been rumors floating around that Joey wanted to go to Wisconsin, but didn’t want to play with Tyler Herro, who was committed to Wisconsin at the time. So, he chose to play with his brother at rival Marquette.

Wisconsin basketball happens to have two scholarship offers open to use on the Hauser brothers, and now it seems like that may not be a coincidence.

The Hausers have some close connections to current Badgers Brad Davison, Kobe King, and Trevor Anderson. Anderson has played with the Hausers through high school and was a part of their big state title runs at Stevens Point. I think they would love to play together again. Brad Davison’s dad and the Hauser’s dad played ball together at Minnesota-Duluth back in the day, and they have played together since they were kids.

Clearly, there are a lot of different factors that point to the Hausers coming to Madison that makes this feel like a real possibility. However, something that makes me a little hesitant to buy into the hype is this: Would they really transfer to a rival?

I’m sure they both made friends and had good relationships with their teammates at Marquette. Betrayal is a strong word to use in sports, but some teammates could view it that way.

Meanwhile, the newly-crowned champions Virginia Cavaliers are reportedly also in the mix. It would make sense for them to want to go there. But, Virginia doesn’t have enough scholarship open–yet. If they have enough players go to the NBA, they will have enough. But it sounds like Virginia is looking for immediate help with transfers because they are in win-now mode. If the Hausers transferred to Virginia, they would be using two scholarships on players that are not available to play until the 2020-2021 season. So while it is still possible, it sounds like Virginia may not be a factor here.

Another big name that came up was Michigan State. They are in a similar position as Virginia. Fresh off a Final Four appearance, they aren’t going to lose a whole lot. They are pretty much booked with scholarships unless they have some players depart for the draft. But if Michigan State really wanted to, they could resolve the scholarship problem in some way.

This could be a very big pickup for the Wisconsin basketball program. Recruiting has not necessarily been kind to the Badgers lately. They seem to miss out on a lot of their top targets.  But with everything that’s being said, it’s easy to get excited about the possibility of landing these two, but I think Badger fans have a reason to be cautiously optimistic.