Badger basketball had a deep, strong rotation in 2025-26 — four-star freshman Zach Kinziger from De Pere, Wisconsin was the No. 7 guard on the team in terms of minutes per game.
Still, there was a time when Kinziger wasn’t going to play at all. Again, the Badgers boasted a strong, top-heavy rotation in their backcourt. With two star guards in Nick Boyd and John Blackwell, plus a handful of experienced, capable veterans in Andrew Rohde, Braeden Carrington and Jack Janicki, Kinziger had his work cut out for him to earn minutes.
Initially, the uphill climb to playing time looked insurmountable. With too many players ahead of him, Janicki considered asking his coaches to redshirt him during his freshman year, he said on Brian Butch’s Butchie’s Den podcast:…