Normally after March it's all quite on the Badgers basketball front, well, minus recruiting stuff of course. But, the point is that normally we aren't talking much about the current makeup of the roster because it's not changing. In 2012 Bo Ryan had something happen that only has occurred one other time in his entire career – a player went through with a transfer from Wisconsin.
Before we go any further don't forget to check out another transfer story, the saga that was Danny O'Brien, which came in No. 10 on our Badgers 2012 Year in Review.
Today, we explore one of the strangest and most insane stories to happen around Wisconsin basketball in quite some time as No. 9 on our list is the transfer saga of Jarrod Uthoff.
What happened: April 12, 2012… It's a date that probably doesn't mean much to the normal human being, but if you are a hardcore Badgers fan it's a day that won't be soon forgotten, because it's the day that a redshirt freshman by the name of Jarrod Uthoff made himself a household, nationally known name by declaring that he was transferring from Wisconsin and was looking to be released from his scholarship.
To say there was shock around the program and the fans would be an understatement. Just how shocked was Bo Ryan and Co? Well, they put some massive transfer restrictions on him including all Big Ten teams (normal procedure) as well as future opponents like Virginia and Florida as well as Iowa State and a few other programs around the Midwest.
Needless to say, he wasn't a happy camper about this and appealed the decision and that's where a lot of the silliness began. Ryan took to the airwaves and radio shows to make his case for the restrictions and it's safe to say he didn't come off exactly as he planned and pretty much a national campaign to "Free Uthoff" began.
In the end Uthoff appealed and the only restrictions that were actually put on him were inside the Big Ten and if he wanted to transfer inside the conference he would have to sit out two full seasons and pay his own way for one of those two seasons.
As if the story wasn't already screwed up enough, right? Well, Uthoff decided to do just that – transfer to a school in the Big Ten. It wasn't just any school though, it was rival Iowa that got his transfer. A decision that was announced in early June, some two months after his announcement that he wanted to transfer. He went to Iowa despite the Hawkeyes not being able to contact him because of the transfer restrictions he was under. So in the end Uthoff saw fit to whine his way back to his home state while trying to make Wisconsin out to be the bad guy.
Why it's on the List: I think it's safe to say anytime a player transfers from Wisconsin basketball it's news. Hell, it's only happened one other time in the Bo Ryan era. It's a rare occurrence to be sure, but what made this story even worse was the fact that Uthoff seemed fit to try and fight out the transfer via surrogates and the media until coach Ryan was forced to defend his transfer restrictions. That didn't go exactly as he wanted and in the end his hand was forced by Uthoff and he got what he wanted in going back home. As if the recent basketball rivalry between these two schools needed any more heat right?
In the end this was one of the most memorable stories off the court, field, or ice in recent Badger memory and for that alone it should've made the list. Add in the fact that it was a national story and you have to include this one in any countdown of 2012.
For more on the best of Badgers in 2012 make sure you are following us on Twitter @MTBadgers and 'Like' us on Facebook too.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
