Wisconsin basketball dismisses incoming transfer from team out of the blue

Wisconsin basketball has dismissed Elijah Gray from the basketball team before he ever even took the court. He was a solid pickup in the transfer portal out of Temple, but something happened before he ever even set foot on campus. According to Matt Fortuna, he was dismissed "related to events preceding his enrollment at UW-Madison."

The punishment came not because of something that happened for the Badgers, but before, and yet, due to privacy laws, it can only be speculation at this point.

Elijah Gray is no longer with Wisconsin basketball and the Badgers are down a big man

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While it feels a little out of the blue, you can start to connect some dots, as he didn't appear in the Red-White scrimmage due to "illness," and he also didn't play or even appear on the bench in the first exhibition against Oklahoma due to "personal reasons."

Then, when head coach Greg Gard said that the ten that played in the Oklahoma exhibition were the most likely depth, it felt like Gray didn't have a role or a spot. However, no one asked, and he never offered what the scoop is about Gray.

However, it looks like something was happening behind the scenes the whole time and Wisconsin was trying to discern the best path forward for Gray and the university. More will come out later and hopefully everything is okay in Gray's life.

It is a blow to the depth at big man for the Badgers, even though Gard mentioned he had the players he needed this year behind Nolan Winter and Austin Rapp. Yet, the best depth behind those two appears to be true freshmen Aleksas Bieliauskas and Will Garlock. So there will be some bumps in the road as those two learn how to play at the college level.