DENVER, CO (CBB REVIEW) – Wisconsin basketball’s graduate guard John Tonje was excited to play the First and Second Rounds of the NCAA tournament in Denver.
“(It) brings back a lot of memories just driving around and seeing the downtown part of Denver,” he said on Wednesday. “It’s definitely a blessing to be back in Colorado for a little bit.”
Tonje started his career 65 miles north of Denver in Colorado State. He spent four years with the Rams, being the team’s second leading scorer in the 2022-23 season.
After that campaign, Tonje transferred to Missouri, where he medically redshirted. He joined Wisconsin basketball afterward.
Despite posting below-average showings in the Big 10 championship against Michigan and in the NCAA tournament First Round against Montana, Tonje found his offensive groove against BYU in the Round of 32 on Saturday evening with 37 points.
With the Badgers down 91-89 with 13 seconds remaining in the second half, it was no question that Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard gave the ball to Tonje for the final shot.
“I put the ball in my best player’s hands,” Gard said.
Tonje, receiving the ball on the inbound pass, nearly traveled the length of the floor. With BYU players surrounding him, he let up a shot that trickled on the rim. The Cougars swarmed on the ball as the buzzer sounded at Ball Arena, giving them the victory.
“(I was) just trying to get downhill,” Tonje said on what he saw on his final shot. “(I) just kind of stopped around the block area. At that point I didn’t know what options I had. I just tried to go up with it.”
Wisconsin basketball trailed 89-78 with 2:34 remaining in the second half. It continued to drive downhill with its forwards, while getting the ball out to Tonje, who scored the game’s last six points.
“We just believed in each other,” Tonje said. “We just kept fighting back, kept encouraging each other, letting each other know what was at stake. I’m proud of the guys just for fighting to get back in the game and giving everything we had.”
Tonje shot 10-for-18 from the field, and 3-for-9 from three-point land. More importantly, he went 14-for-16 from the free-throw line, going 11-for-11 in the second half.
“It was really hard to stop him,” BYU freshman guard/forward Egor Demin said about Tonje. “I think this is, first of all, why it was really hard to stop him. He was really finding the way how to score, even if we are staying in front or we are not jumping his pump fakes.”
“He’s one of the best players in the country,” Demin’s head coach, Kevin Young, said. “You can try to do as good of a job as you want…The Big 12 is a lot of more physical. I thought this game had a tighter whistle.”
Tonje also received the ball often because of foul trouble. Four of Gard’s players picked up three fouls in the game with two of them, senior guard Kamari McGee and senior forward Carter Gillmore, were penalized twice in the first half. Wisconsin basketball’s bench players only mustered three points.
“Every game it’s somebody different,” Gard said about the foul trouble. “(But) I got 37 out of my best player, he had a hell of a game. The bench didn’t have those same opportunities.”
Despite being the first Big Ten team to lose in this year’s NCAA tournament, (Michigan beat Texas A&M earlier in the day), the Badgers finished the season as conference runner-ups after being projected to finish 12th along with Nebraska, who will take part in the inaugural College Basketball Crown.
An accomplishing season for Wisconsin basketball.
“Watching them grow together from the time we got together in June to now may have been the most fun, enjoyable year in my career,” Gard said. “This group just bought in and committed to each other and were so much fun to be around every single day.”
“The ending stinks, but the ride was a hell of a lot of fun.”