John Tonje’s winding basketball journey has taken him from Omaha Central to the mountaintop.
After six years of college basketball, capped by one of the best seasons in Wisconsin history, Tonje was selected by the Utah Jazz on Thursday night with the No. 53 in this year’s NBA draft.
Tonje, who led Central to Class A runner-up in 2019, started his career at Colorado State before transferring to Missouri, where he only played eight games because of an injury, then closed the curtain with one of the best individual seasons from any Badger ever.
The 6-foot-5, 218-pound sharpshooting swingman averaged 19.6 points and 5.3 rebounds this past season. His 724 points, scored with a mix of range and power, are the second-most in a single season at Wisconsin.
He was a consensus second-team All-American, semifinalist for Naismith National Player of the Year and unanimously voted first team in a loaded Big Ten.
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Tonje, a career 37.8% 3-point shooter, hit 38% of his 3s in 2024-25 while setting UW records for single-season free throws (231), free throw percentage (90.9% and free throws in a single game (21).
Before then, three years off the bench led to a breakout at CSU, where Tonje started all 33 games in his fourth season and produced then-career-high averages in 14.6 points (14.6), rebounds (4.7) and assists (1.3).
And he was primed for a similar run, on a bigger stage, at Missouri. That ended when a foot injury ended Tonje’s season after eight games.
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