PORTLAND, OR – Wisconsin guard Jack Janicki has yet to rewatch the play where he suffered his wrist injury that sidelined him for the rest of the 2025-26 regular season.
“I just haven’t really gotten around to wanting to,” Janicki said.
The redshirt sophomore does not need to rewatch it either to remember it in precise detail. It was late in the first half of the Badgers’ Feb. 17 loss at Ohio State. As he was falling, he remembered last year’s fall at Minnesota where he broke a tooth.
“I can’t break this tooth; that will be excruciating,” Janicki remembers thinking while midair. “So I stopped the fall obviously with my wrist. … I landed on my rib and hip, and that was an initial shock of losing your air and then my hip hurting.”
After the shock wore off and as he was in the Schottenstein Center locker room at halftime, his wrist was shaking and in “10-out-of-10 pain.” He knew at that point that he needed to get imaging, and he has yet to see game action this season.
Janicki has made substantial progress in the month since that halftime realization – March 16 marked his return to practice, and he practiced with his wrist wrapped on March 18 – but he also has more work to do before possibly returning to game action for the Badgers in the men’s NCAA Tournament.
“Every day is a step closer,” Janicki said. “I’ve got to get to the point where I can brace myself and check people and obviously shoot without the risk of reinjury and obviously the risk of severe pain.”
If Wisconsin can advance to the second weekend of the tournament – a feasible scenario as the No. 5 seed, but also something UW last achieved in 2017 – Janicki’s return would be “more reasonable.”
“The date that was circled was always probably the Sweet 16,” Janicki said. “This week would have been a crazy recovery. Who knows, maybe I wake up on Saturday and feel like a new man.”
The injury recovery, Janicki said, has been “really mentally challenging.”
“I’d be lying if I said I accomplished what I wanted to out of this season,” Janicki said. “I think this year was important for some of the non-statistical value that I brought to this team. … But it’s tough to sit out knowing that you might have left a little bit on the table.”
Janicki had been averaging 16.5 minutes per game in Wisconsin’s first 26 games of the season. His 2.2 points per game and 32.3% shooting did not stand out on the stat sheet although he occupied a critical defensive role for the Badgers.
“I wanted to take a bigger step this year,” Janicki said. “But at the same time, I see this roster and I acknowledged my role, and I found my minutes and I found my value where I can. I love that role for me this year, and it’s about getting this wrist right and providing that role this year and going forward, but also growing as a player.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jack Janicki reflects on injury recovery heading into NCAA Tournament
