Wisconsin basketball recruiting: UW offers 2025 in-state big man Kai Rogers on Thursday

The second offer to come out of UW’s advanced basketball camp is also from inside the state. 2025 big man Kai Rogers (Wauwatosa) out of Wauwatosa West High School earned an offer from the Badgers on Thursday, joining 2025 wing Davion Hannah out of Milwaukee.

Rogers, a rising sophomore, has received a ton of attention on the recruiting trail over the past month. Georgetown, Illinois, Iowa, Ole Miss and Texas have all extended scholarships in the past three weeks, to go along with the Wisconsin offer. His profile on 247Sports mentions an offer from Florida State, but I can’t find any other confirmation of that. Illinois State, Marquette and Valpo have also expressed interest and one can safely assume that the Golden Eagles will offer the local kid sooner or later.

Rogers stands at a towering 6-foot-10 and now weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 240 pounds, with reports from Evan Flood noting that he has slimmed down a bunch ($) this summer and looks to be in great shape.

As a freshman at Tosa West, Rogers averaged 10.4 points (69.4% field/42.9% 3P/54.3% FT), 5.5 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game. On defense, he blocked 1.9 shots per game and added 0.8 steals per contest as well. Rogers plays his grassroots ball for Wisconsin Playground Club on the Under Armour circuit where a number of other UW greats (Sam Dekker, Johnny Davis, Brian Butch, Tim Jarmusz, Bronson Koenig, Marcus Landry) and current Badgers (Jordan Davis and Kamari McGee) have played.

While none of the major recruiting services have rated the class of 2025 yet, PrepHoops Wisconsin (where Evan Flood also writes) has Rogers ranked as the top player in the state.

Not to harp too much on how Rogers looks, but you can tell that he has been working hard on his body and he looks more athletic and lively in the top video (taken a week ago) than in the bottom video (taken during his freshman season).

Rogers shows good defensive instincts, which will help him as the players he’s playing against grow closer to his size and he can’t just overwhelm them with length when they attack the basket. There is a nice chase-down block in the top video too that shows how Rogers doesn’t quit on plays

I also really like the hustle that Rogers shows in the top video. He’s diving on the floor for loose balls and saving possessions out of bounds for his team too. You don’t always see a guy of his size getting floor burns, so it’s a welcome sight when one does.

He battles for position well when rebounding and uses his size to shield his man so he (Rogers) has a clear path to the ball. Rogers shows potential as a dominant scorer down low but he has some work to do, which you can even tell in these highlight videos, on his footwork and post moves. However, he has got three years of high school ball left to fine tune all of this.

Rogers’ shooting ability is the skill that will make or break how highly rated, and nationally recruited, he becomes. His three-point percentage (42.9%) from his freshman year is very impressive, but he only attempted 14 all year and his free throw percentage (54.3%) is, uh, not great. I’d guess that shooting is something he’ll be working hard on and it would be nice to see him settle into a 35%-38% range on higher volume as he gets older.

Were that to happen, he’d fit the mold of what one might call the Stereotypical Wisconsin Big Man. Flood noted in one of his posts about Rogers that he, and his family, are Wisconsin fans and getting an offer from the Badgers is a big deal to him. Much like Hannah being on campus for the advanced camp, having Rogers there is a good sign that the early relationship between UW and Rogers is solid.