Why Daniel Freitag chose Wisconsin basketball, giving Greg Gard his biggest

Daniel Freitag walked through a tunnel into Camp Randall Stadium at 11:07 a.m. on a sunny April morning to take in one of Wisconsin’s spring practices as a prospective football recruit. Freitag, a two-sport standout from Bloomington, Minn., had been to campus on multiple occasions as a basketball recruit but had recently earned a scholarship offer from the Badgers for football and wanted to see how new coach Luke Fickell and his staff operated.

Wisconsin basketball coach Greg Gard wasn’t going to let an opportunity go to waste. Gard, who had extended Freitag a scholarship offer nearly two years earlier, not coincidentally waited on the sideline along with his assistant coach, Joe Krabbenhoft, for Freitag to make his way over. As Freitag surveyed football practice, he and Gard embraced in a hug and spent a significant portion of the two-hour practice chatting.

Moments like that did not go unnoticed by Freitag, who ultimately chose basketball over football and publicly announced his commitment to Gard and Wisconsin on Friday afternoon over Baylor, Minnesota, Notre Dame and Virginia.

Freitag’s commitment represents arguably Gard’s most significant recruiting victory since he took over as head coach from Bo Ryan during the middle of the 2015-16 season. Freitag, a four-star prospect in the 247Sports Composite and the No. 8 point guard in the country, is set to become the highest-rated signee Gard has landed. Only four other Wisconsin players in the online recruiting rankings era had a higher composite rating: Brian Butch, Sam Dekker, Krabbenhoft and Greg Stiemsma. Each of them signed more than a decade ago and were forwards or centers, making the 6-foot-2 Freitag the highest-rated Badgers guard.

“I think what stood out was really just my relationship with Gard,” Freitag said. “I feel like if Gard was a football coach at Minnesota-Duluth, I would’ve ended up at Minnesota-Duluth. No shade to Minnesota-Duluth. Just how good of a relationship we had made me choose that program over the other sport. It wasn’t necessarily basketball winning over football.

“Gard kind of handled all of the recruiting. There were assistants at games and stuff like that, but my main recruiter was coach Gard. I don’t think it’s very common that the head coach is kind of doing all the recruiting for a player. It’s special for me just because he was doing so when I was a 15-year-old with no other offers, with no other interest.”

Freitag’s decision has been a long time coming for Gard. Freitag averaged 10.2 points per game as a freshman on the varsity team at Jefferson High School. Jefferson basketball coach Jeff Evens sat down with Freitag after his freshman year and told him he believed Freitag had the potential to be a Division I basketball player. Evens said he would make phone calls to college coaches he knew on Freitag’s behalf but that his…