Once a lightly recruited role player at Colorado State, John Tonje’s blown the lid off his potential.
Tonje, Wisconsin’s All-American leading scorer, returns to Colorado this week for the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament at Ball Arena. His Badgers are the No. 3 seed in the East Regional and take on No. 14 Montana in the first March Madness game on Thursday in downtown Denver.
“I don’t think anybody would have projected this (for Tonje),” Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard said. “If they did, they’re not telling you the truth.”
Tonje started just 13 games across his first three seasons in Fort Collins before enjoying a breakout senior year in 2022-23, then transferred to Missouri last season where a promising campaign was derailed by a season-ending foot injury.
But with the Badgers, he’s emerged as a national star and semifinalist for the Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year Award while averaging 19.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists. Meanwhile, his former teammates are also in the tournament as a No. 12 seed in the West Regional, after Niko Medved’s CSU Rams won the Mountain West for the first time in 22 years.
“They’re still my guys,” Tonje said of CSU. “I watched their game, and (I’m) super happy for them to see them make that run at the end of the year and stamp their names in here and get in March Madness. It’s awesome. I’m pretty sure we’re both pulling for each other.”
No doubt the Rams have been enjoying Tonje’s star turn from afar.
The Nebraska native said the foot injury he suffered at Missouri gave him time to reflect on, and improve, his game heading into his last year of major college basketball with Wisconsin.
“It was kind of refreshing to kind of start from the bottom again, being injured and going day-by-day, and just seeing improvement week-by-week was just huge,” Tonje said. “I had to go back to the basics and kind of be in the gym alone. I had a lot of time to myself. … It got me better to learn from (all that).”
Even when he got to Madison as a graduate transfer, Gard — who was sold on Tonje after watching his CSU film — said Tonje had a learning curve to climb.
“As the season started in October, he had work to do defensively,” Gard said. “He’s made great strides on the defensive end. Then offensively, I think this system has helped him. It’s put him in a great position to have success.”
Tonje and the Badgers face Big Sky champion Montana in Thursday’s first round. And the Grizzlies are hungry to take advantage of the program’s first March Madness in six years.
“The University of Montana has been a staple in college basketball for 50 years, and nobody talks about it,” said Travis DeCuire, the Grizzlies’ all-time winningest head coach. “So for us every time we get on this stage, it’s an opportunity to earn that respect and demand that respect. We just need to go out and play good basketball and create that conversation.”
In DeCuire, Montana has an old-school coach amid college basketball’s new NIL age. Montana’s heart and soul is graduate guard Brandon Whitney, a fifth-year program pillar whom DeCuire says “stands for what college basketball once was.”
“Me, I still live in the past — I still believe in programs as opposed to teams,” DeCuire. “I still believe in the development of a young man. I still believe in graduating 100% of my young men. That culture I think is a part of the reason that Brandon stayed with us. The hard part, which is why I respect Brandon as much as any player I’ve ever coached, is that his role changed.
“To see him commit to (Montana) and come back when he knows that he could have done other things, he could have left for money, he could have left for maybe somewhere that might have a system that allows him to do the things that he wants to do for the entire game as opposed to portions of the game. He didn’t do that because he wanted this.”
Tonje, in some ways, represents both the old and new eras of college basketball.
The standout guard developed over four years in Fort Collins. He went from a little-used bench player as a freshman to a 33-game starter in his fourth and final season with the Rams — one that ended outside the NCAA Tournament after earning a No. 6 seed the previous season with future first-round draft pick David Roddy leading the way.
Granted an extra year of eligibility by the COVID-19 pandemic, Tonje transferred to Missouri for his fifth college season. Then a medical redshirt allowed him one more bite at the apple … as a 23-year-old guard playing for his third college in three years.
Asked why he chose Wisconsin as his final stop, Tonje said the Badgers coaching staff’s belief in him post-injury helped sway his decision.
“I wouldn’t trade my journey for anyone else’s,” Tonje said.
And now that journey comes full circle with a visit to the state where Tonje first made his name.
“It was pretty cool to know that I’m coming back to a familiar place,” he said. “Brings back a lot of memories just driving around and seeing the downtown area of Denver. It’s definitely a blessing to be back in Colorado.”
For that to be an extended stay, Tonje and the Badgers will have to sway a Grizzlies group relatively unfamiliar with March Madness. DeCuire says he’ll draw on his experience coaching Montana to consecutive tournament appearances in 2018 and ’19.
In the first of those showings, No. 14 Montana jumped up 10-0 on No. 3 Michigan out of the gate, but the Grizzlies had their momentum derailed by early foul trouble by star Michael Oguine. Then, a power outage caused an 11-minute delay in the game, after which the Wolverines pulled away.
“You look in hindsight and ask yourself, ‘Well, what could I have done?’” DeCuire said. “Maybe you let it rip. Maybe a guy picks up two fouls in the game early, and you leave him in. What are we saving him for? Let’s go.
“So the only thing I would carry over from back then is let it rip. There won’t be any second thoughts during this game.”
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