Homegrown Former Gopher Commits to… Wisconsin

The Minnesota Gophers men’s basketball team is going through a major overhaul of its program. Not only does it have a new head coach, in Colorado State’s Niko Medved, but they also have nearly 10 players on the 2025-26 roster, who were not in Dinkytown last year.

Roster turnover is very much commonplace in today’s NIL + transfer portal age of college basketball. Before he was fired, former Gophers head coach Ben Johnson was losing most of his best players every offseason.

This time last year, Minnesota lost Pharrel Payne (Texas A&M), Elijah Hawkins (Texas Tech) and Josh Ola-Joseph (Cal), among others. One offseason earlier Johnson lost top Big Ten talent Jamison Battle (Ohio State), along with starting guard Ta’Lon Cooper (South Carolina) and 3 and D specialist Braeden Carrington (Tulsa).

While all of the players listed above left the Big Ten momentarily, a couple of homegrown talents are both on their way back… to different Big Ten teams. Payne (Cottage Grove, MN) followed his head coach Buzz Williams from A&M to Maryland.

Former MN Gophers guard Braeden Carrington lands with Wisconsin Badgers

Then on Thursday, news broke that one of those former local Minnesota Gophers talents, Braeden Carrington (Brooklyn Park), has signed with — you guessed it — the Wisconsin Badgers. Last year, in his one season at Tulsa, the 6-4, 195 lb guard averaged 7.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game.

Tulsa guard transfer Braeden Carrington has signed with Wisconsin, @chris_hummer and I have learned for @cbssports/@247sports.

A return to the Big Ten for Carrington, who began his career at Minnesota and started 10 games there in 2023-24. Made 19 starts for Tulsa this past… pic.twitter.com/5oppY9vMY3

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) April 24, 2025

Carrington will give the Badgers a guy, who at his best, will provide a hot/cold 3-point point threat who can put the ball on the floor and go to the basket, when a defender commits to defending his outside shot.

But where Braeden brings the most value is on defense. When called upon, Carrington can lockdown just about any perimeter scorer he is tasked with guarding. Immediately, the Brooklyn Park kid re-enters the conference as one of its best defenders.

Related: Confirmed: Ben Johnson was the NIL Problem for Gophers Men’s Basketball

Except now, he’s taking classes and playing basketball right over the eastern border, for our most hated rival. meaning some of those defensive assignments will come against his hometown Minnesota Gophers. How a local kid could ever put on the red and white is beyond me… but NIL money talks.