The highest-rated point guard recruit in Wisconsin history will be thrust into the limelight his freshman year after Chucky Hepburn announced his intent to transfer. He’s no stranger to high pressure situations.
All eyes have been on Daniel Freitag since Chucky Hepburn announced his intent to transfer.
The highest-rated point guard recruit in school history said he was just as surprised as anyone else at the decision, but not worried.
“The expectation, the added pressure, I love it,” Freitag said in an interview with Badger Stripes.
Scroll through his X account, and that much is clear.
After choosing to transfer to the Breck School in the Minneapolis suburbs for his senior year, Freitag was able to develop his game and prove any doubters wrong by winning a state championship. He isn’t done there.
“[Winning state] was amazing, but I think my sights have been set on a [college] national championship for the last 12 months,” Freitag explained. “So it really was just a short term goal.”
One he accomplished with a nagging injury.
“I messed [my ankle] up really bad right before the season started,” Freitag explained.
He was able to gut it out all season, and put up 33 points, eight rebounds, an assist and five steals in Breck’s championship win over Lake City.
“To be honest, I’ve just gotten used to the pain, which has made it easier to play my game,” he explained in a March interview.
Injuries last year led to a drop in the rankings, resulting in him falling from a 4-star recruit to a 3-star, and out of the top 100, on some boards.
After the season, he opted to get surgery to fix the nagging injury, which has taken him off his feet for the past few weeks. But the guard says he’ll be ready to play again by summer.
“I’m back into full going 100% basketball right around the beginning of summer workouts,” Freitag said. “So it works out perfect.”
In the meantime, Wisconsin and Head Coach Greg Gard have been active in the transfer portal, despite missing out on top targets Frankie Fidler and Brandon Angel, who decided to transfer to Michigan State and Oregon, respectively.
“When it gets to a point where there’s astronomical amounts of money involved, I don’t blame the players for making sure they are in a position where they can financially really take care of themselves and their families,” Gard said in a radio interview with Wilde and Tausch on Wednesday. “Anybody that’s in any type of job and offered an opportunity in a one-year window to double or triple your current salary, you’d likely do it in a heartbeat.”
Gard dud land Central Arkansas transfer Camren Hunter over the weekend. The 6’3″ guard sat out last year due to a foot injury, but was a 4-star recruit out of high school and averaged 16.9 points, 5 rebounds and 3.9 assists as a sophomore.
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