MADISON – Wisconsin’s Hayden Jones and Aleksas Bieliauskas have a relatively short on-ramp before their first season of college basketball.
While the Badgers’ seven other newcomers had the summer to acclimate to Greg Gard’s program, international basketball commitments kept Jones and Bieliauskas from joining their UW teammates until the start of the fall semester.
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“From an NCAA standpoint, if they can’t be here in person for the full eight weeks, then they’re not allowed to come,” Gard said of the rules for incoming freshmen. “We couldn’t piecemeal the summer together.”
Even with their shorter window to acclimate to college basketball, Gard is optimistic about his two international freshmen – Jones is a 6-foot-6 guard, and Bieliauskas is a 6-foot-10 forward – for the same reason why they weren’t able to arrive in Madison earlier.
“Even though they’re freshmen maybe in the program, their experiences have put them ahead,” Gard said. “They’ve played on a world stage. They’ve played in the systematic things that we do.”
Jones averaged 14.6 points in seven games at the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland. New Zealand, with the help of Jones and 2026 UW commit Jackson Ball, finished fourth in the tournament despite ranking No. 22 in the world ahead of the tournament. It was the country’s highest-ever finish in the tournament.
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Bieliauskas, meanwhile, led Lithuania to a silver medal at the 2025 Eurobasket U20 tournament. He was second on the team with 12.4 points per game (behind Charleston guard Justas Stonkus’ 13.6 points per game) and led the team with 8.3 rebounds per game.
“They’ve been exposed to older players, more mature players, better players that they see and play against all the time,” Gard said.
Wisconsin is allowed to communicate with incoming freshmen while they’re competing internationally, but at the same time, “there wasn’t a whole lot of downtime for them in that span anyway.”
“They’re really busy,” Gard said. “When they go with those national teams, their schedules are pretty packed. They’re practicing, they’re traveling, they’re playing. So there’s not a lot of free time for them to stick something in that we want them to do.”
Playing for New Zealand, Hayden Jones dunks in a FIBA World Cup quarterfinal in July.
Now that they are on campus, Gard thinks it’s a little easier for Jones as someone who is coming from New Zealand rather than Lithuania.
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“English is still a prominent language in New Zealand and Australia,” Gard said. “Aleksas – I think his English is good, but imagine yourself, insert yourself into a different country that you’ve never been in. And I think our team and the teammates have done a really good job and our staff has done a really good job of putting arms around him and helping him acclimate.”
The two international players join guard Zach Kinziger from De Pere and forward Will Garlock from Middleton in UW’s freshman class.
Kinziger had a four-star rating from 247 Sports and was rated the 17th-best shooting guard nationally in the recruiting site’s composite rankings. Garlock, officially listed as a 7-footer, chose the Badgers over offers from Marquette, Iowa, Penn State and Virginia Tech.
It helps that the freshmen are joining a relatively experienced group of players, whether that be at UW or elsewhere, before entering the transfer portal. Six players have played in at least 60 college games.
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“Whether they’re coming from Middleton and De Pere like our two in-state kids or coming from thousands of miles away, the older guys help that transition,” Gard said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hayden Jones, Aleksas Bieliauskas acclimate to Wisconsin basketball
