February 26, 2025

Jack Janicki turned down offers from other schools to be a walk-on at Wisconsin. This season, he has been a spark plug off the bench, playing key minutes in big victories.

Two years ago, Jack Janicki turned down offers from Wake Forest, Loyola Chicago, Colorado State, Harvard, and others to walk on at Wisconsin. He came here as a preferred walk-on with the assumption that he would be able to play for a scholarship and work his way onto the court. His freshman year resulted in a redshirt after never seeing the court last year. This year has been a different story. Starting with the Arizona game, he has been a spark plug off the bench, playing key minutes in big victories. His presence isn’t always reflected in the stat line due to his limited use as Wisconsin’s 9th man at the moment. But once you start digging into his statistics, that narrative begins to shift.

Starting right off the bat, we have to look at the per-minute stats to compare with the rest of the roster. Janicki is averaging .037 steals per minute played. For comparison, John Blackwell leads the starters with .030 steals per minute. Janicki has .020 …