Even though last Saturday’s Wisconsin men’s basketball game against the EA-Sports All-Stars was only an exhibition game against a team that was playing its seventh game in 11 days, a lot has already been taken from the contest.

“Teams are starting to get films [of UW’s exhibition game] now,” said UW head coach Bo Ryan. “It’s amazing how many copies of this one are going out across the nation to the teams we play. They’ll look for weaknesses, strengths, and where to neutralize.”

The one thing that the tape is going to reveal is that the Badgers have a group of players new to the court — and boy can they play.

Saturday’s game unveiled UW true freshman Devin Harris. Harris, who started the exhibition contest, torched EA-Sports for 22 points and six rebounds, all of which came on the defensive end.

Harris, one of eight Badger newcomers who saw action on Saturday, logged 29 minutes in his debut.

After the game, EA-Sports head coach Price Johnson opened up post-game talk with his impressions of Harris.

“[Wisconsin] has a special freshman in Harris,” said Johnson.

The 6-foot-3 guard is probably one of the best examples of the difference of this season’s Badger squad as compared to the teams of the past few years.

In his first touch of the game last Saturday, Harris took the ball down low for an easy two points — and that was just the beginning. Throughout the game, Harris was seen weaving through traffic, finding an open lane, and posting spin moves that left the man covering him wondering where he went.

Harris was not the only freshman to turn heads, though. Redshirt freshman Mike Wilkinson was second in scoring with 19 points, and along with senior Charlie Wills had a team-high nine rebounds.

Like Harris, Wilkinson made his presence known the minute he stepped on the court. Wilkinson entered the game only three and a half minutes into the opening period. Not even 10 seconds later he was open at the perimeter, and instead of shelling out the ball, he took the open shot for the three-pointer and sank it.

The overall play of the freshmen left an impressionable mark on fans and media alike, but Ryan has stressed that he is not going to put high expectations on his newcomers based on one game’s performance.

“The one thing I become weary of is freshman having a good game and media going overboard,” said Ryan. “[In the] next few games [the media] don’t see the same numbers and you start wondering what the heck happened to that player. I always said that if I get the job at Wisconsin and I have a freshman that plays well, I’m going treat it as a good performance for that night. We’re not going to go overboard … now let’s hope we can stay consistent and do it again.”

Both Wilkinson and Harris came to Wisconsin with high expectations on their shoulders. Both were the Wisconsin state players of the year –Wilkinson in 2000 and Harris in 2001.

While Harris is experiencing college life for the first time, Wilkinson has a year under his belt, and got to see first-hand the effect that last year’s senior-dominated team had. While Mike Kelley, Mark Vershaw, and Andy Kowske are gone, Wilkinson believes that a new bond like those three had can formulate in the next few years.

“We have so many young players, and in order for us to win we have to come together like that,” said Wilkinson. “With our young players we really are coming together, and as long as we keep working on that we can form that core group of players like [Kelley,Vershaw, and Kowske] that everyone is going to feed off of. We have great role models in Wills and Davis, who have been through it before and can get us to that point.”

As for whether or not Harris, Wilkinson, and the other newcomers provide the same amount of output as they did last Saturday, only time can tell. To help keep these players level-headed and focused, Ryan has mentioned that if the team’s play becomes sub-par, the support will not always be there.

“Anyone can tell [the freshman] had a lot of friends Saturday night after nine o’clock and Sunday too,” said Ryan. “They had a lot of people who sincerely meant that they had a nice game and were fun to watch, but that’s not my job. Our job is to evaluate and try to get a little better because we also tell them that those same friends won’t be there when things go the other way. Especially for freshmen, you can’t let them get too full of themselves … right?”