Former 4-star Wisconsin signee living up to the hype elsewhere is infuriating

The curious case of Daniel Freitag will be part of Wisconsin lore for at least a few years. He was a star in high school; he had four of them, actually. He was the top player in Wisconsin's class. He came to Wisconsin, disappeared on the bench, and looked rough in the few minutes he did get. All indications were that he was a bust. Then, he transferred to Buffalo. He's now putting up insane numbers.

The question then needs to be asked: Did Greg Gard whiff on Freitag? Was there a miss for who he is as a player and what he's capable of? Let's dive in.

Daniel Freitag looking like a star and living up to his 4-star ranking at Buffalo

Related: Joe Lunardi's latest bracketology has Wisconsin in danger of missing the tournament

First, it makes sense to look at Freitag's numbers at Buffalo. He's averaging over 20 points a game, five rebounds, nearly three assists, and shooting at a 44% clip. He's already had two games with 30+ points, and in his latest game, he outscored East Carolina (by himself) by halftime.

He's been nothing short of incredible at Buffalo, and sure, it's a lower-level league, and there's going to be some stat adjustments that would need to be made if he were back in a Power-4. However, scoring 20 points a game in college basketball, anywhere, is impressive.

So there's going to be two schools of thought. First, Greg Gard missed, and he's now living up to his potential elsewhere, which is infuriating. That answer may be correct; it's hard to know, and we may never know. The second school of thought is that it was simply a bad fit at Wisconsin, and Freitag, like much of the current Badgers, couldn't quite get right on the defensive end of the floor.

He may have been a scoring threat for the Badgers this year (his sophomore year), but he would fit into the same category of frustration Gard already has: an inability to play defense the way Gard wants. And you know what happened in that East Carolina game? They found a way to lock down Freitag; he only scored three points in the second half, and Buffalo's defense was terrible, so they eventually lost to ECU.

So could it have been a bad fit? That theory could also be right, or maybe it's a bit of both. Regardless, the numbers Freitag is putting up at Buffalo will give him a chance to launch back into the transfer portal (if he wants) and find a new Power-4 home to give it another crack.