PORTLAND, OR – Austin Rapp needed tickets ahead of the Wisconsin Badgers’ trip to Portland for the first two rounds of the men’s NCAA Tournament.
“I think I was on the phone from like 7 p.m. to 9:30 last night, just from people in Portland trying to get tickets,” Rapp said in Madison the day after Selection Sunday. “I’m trying to ask all the boys for tickets. I need around 30.”
Now that Rapp and the Badgers are actually in Portland, the 6-foot-10 forward is experiencing a family reunion in a couple different ways as he begins his first NCAA Tournament run where he concluded his first year of college basketball when he was with the Portland Pilots.
Literally, his immediate family made the trip from Australia to Portland. Figuratively, his former coach Shantay Legans remains “family” despite Rapp’s departure from his team.
“I’ll always love him,” Rapp said of Legans. “He’s family. They’re going to come to practice today. … Even though I left, it’s something special, and I’m so grateful that I still have them in my life. And I’m grateful for the decision I made to come to Wisconsin, and it’s been amazing.”
In fact, Legans helped Rapp make the move from his own West Coast Conference program to the Big Ten program where Rapp has increasingly found success. Rapp tried setting up an exit meeting with Legans when the Pilots’ 2024-25 season ended, but Legans was a step ahead of the WCC freshman of the year.
“He was kind of just like, ‘You don’t need to have a conversation with me,’” Rapp said. “‘I’m going to help you. We’re going to help you find the right spot.’ Which is so cool. Most coaches want one of their main guys to come back. But in a sense, he’s like, ‘We know what you can do. Make that jump and go play in the Big Ten.’”
Legans talked to UW associate head coach Joe Krabbenhoft, who “figured out that he had the potential of being a really good fit.”
“He was about all the right things,” Krabbenhoft said. “He was looking for a place like this to grow, to develop, to be a part of something high-level like Wisconsin.”
Now as the Badgers are back in Portland, Rapp had about an hour and a half free during his first night in town before the forward had a massage scheduled. So he hung out with some of his Portland friends in the apartment where he lived last year.
“Portland had a baseball game on last night, so we watched a little bit of them,” Rapp said. “For us, it was just a good time to catch up.”
Having High Point as Wisconsin’s first NCAA Tournament foe March 19 in Rapp’s first appearance in the tournament adds to the full-circle nature of the week. Flynn Clayman, the coach at High Point, started his coaching career in Australia and got to know Rapp’s father.
“I knew about him when he was going to Portland,” Clayman said of Rapp. “I knew he was going to be really good. It didn’t surprise me one bit that he had the season he had there, then is at Wisconsin doing what he’s doing. He’s just a remarkable shooter, a great player who understands his role. He’s going to play this game at a very high level for a long time because he understands his role and plays it well.”
Rapp and High Point’s mutual familiarity does not stop there. High Point assistant coach Anderson Clarke is a native of Australia; he and Rapp “go way back.”
“My parents are really good friends with his parents,” Clarke said. “Huge connection. Back in the day, my dad was actually at Saint Mary’s with Randy Bennett, who was Austin’s dad’s roommate in college. So there’s just connections all over the board.”
Josh Ibukunoluwa, a 6-foot-10 forward on the Panthers, grew up playing against Rapp. Ibukunoluwa estimated that he was about 11 years old when they first played each other.
“Their team had a size advantage on us for sure,” Ibukunoluwa said. “They got us real good. I definitely got him a few times, though, so hopefully I can get him again this time.”
Now, the sophomore post players from Melbourne and Perth will be on opposite sidelines in the Moda Center, with a seat in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on the line.
“To come see him on the bigger stage is really a special moment, a full-circle moment for Australia and also for me and him as well,” Rapp said.
Rapp’s homecoming of sorts aside, playing in the NCAA Tournament anywhere is a milestone for the player who was on a 12-win Portland team in 2024-25.
It’s a milestone, too, when looking at where Rapp and the Badgers were a few months earlier. UW did not have a Quad 1 win in November or December, and Rapp was a combined 1 of 16 from 3-point range in UW’s first four losses.
But now Rapp has found his rhythm with much more than just his 3-point shooting, and his Badgers turned an NCAA Tournament bid from a question mark to an exclamation point. (UW’s No. 5 seed is higher than some of the teams to defeat the Badgers in the regular season, including sixth-seeded BYU, eighth-seeded Villanova and ninth-seeded TCU.)
“This is just so cool to me, and it’s a dream come true,” Rapp said. “I was a kid filling out brackets four years, five years with my family and sitting there, studying all the teams and picking these upsets. … Now I’m in the tournament on a five-seed making an impact. I don’t know what else you can ask for.”
Some of the literal and figurative family supporting Rapp can think of at least one other thing to ask for – more tickets.
“I’ve got 31 tickets,” Rapp said from the Moda Center locker room. “I’ve still got more people asking for more, but there’s only so many I could get. My phone’s been blowing up for the right reason.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin’s Austin Rapp has happy reunion on men’s March Madness Portland trip
Reporting by John Steppe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
