Top-135 recruit includes Wisconsin as final recruitment stage begins (2024)

Almost a year after the University of Wisconsin men's basketball extended an offer to 2025 Lloyd Memorial (Kentucky) High School forward EJ Walker, Walker said the check-ins are becoming more frequent.

A player the Badgers see as a middle ground between Tyler Wahl and AJ Storr,Walker and Wisconsin enter the next stage of the recruitment process as he set an official visit to Madison for the weekend of April 26-28. The 6-foot-8 Walker included Wisconsin in his top 12 schools that he released in a post to Twitter on March 1.

"We've been building our relationship for a while," Walker said. "I like what they do out there. They show that they want me and want me to be there."

Walker is a consensus three-star prospect with skills suitable to initiate the offense and score from the perimeter even with true power forward size. Wisconsin has not offered a player quite like Walker in the 2025 recruiting class. On3 and Rivals rate Walker a top-135 recruit nationally.

Through high school basketball and his play with Midwest Basketball Club in Cincinnati, Ohio, Walker said he feels he has grown in the areas the Badgers hoped, becoming a more-consistent 3-point shooter and ball-handler. Wisconsin's 2025 classalready features 2025 De Pere High School sharpshooting and scoring guard Zach Kinziger, so Walker could inject some size and versatility into the 2025 freshman class for the Badgers.

"I'm fine with having somebody in the same position as me just for competition," Walker said. "I know if I do what I got to do, that I should be in the right place. It's got to be the right fit. Just got to stay hungry and keep working hard, and I should be fine."

Arecruiting effort led by assistant Sharif Chambliss and coach Greg Gardhas already secured two unofficial visits — one June 21, 2023 and then again for the Badgers' game against Tennessee on Nov. 10, 2023 — but the process will soon enter more serious grounds at the end of the month.

The NCAA allows an unlimited number of official visits, a policy change that went into effect last summer, so Walker could visit every school in his top 12. But he noted that he likely won't. He said he will likely cut down his list further after taking more official visits, and then the next step would be to commit, unless it felt right in the moment earlier.

He said he doesn't want his decision to drag into his senior year, so he hopes to finalize a commitment by the end of the summer. So the Badgers securing an early official visit is critical as it continues to pursue a large 2025 class to fill as many as seven open scholarships ahead of the 2025-26 season.

South Carolina coach Lamont Paris, who was a Badgers assistant from 2010-17, received the first visit March 30 as Walker posted a photoof him in a Gameco*cks uniform. Wisconsin is joined by Iowa, West Virginia, Illinois, Louisville, Xavier, Dayton, Ohio State, Purdue, Minnesota, California and South Carolina in Walker's top 12. The Badgers will be the second program he officially visits, and the rest he's still scheduling.