[media-credit name=’Derek Montgomery’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]For a high school freshman standing a mere 4-foot-9, it’s easy to be overlooked — especially on the basketball court. Tanner Bronson, however, overcame these great odds with his strong determination and work ethic.

The sophomore point guard was granted a roster spot on the UW basketball team this season as a walk-on after spending his freshman year watching practice from the sidelines as a team manager. While Bronson found it difficult not playing, he is quite grateful for the experience.

“It was an amazing experience for me, I learned a lot from it,” Bronson said. “I mean, you play basketball your whole life and [then] you don’t get to play as much, but you’re around a program that’s as great as Wisconsin — being able to watch coach everyday in practice, the players and stuff like that.”

In fact, Bronson believes that his duties as a manager last year helped him to make the team this year.

“I mean, I knew what this program was all about, I got to compete everyday basically and being around such a great coach and seeing the things he preaches and stuff like that so definitely [helped],” Bronson said.

In his days at Nicolet High School, Bronson had the fortunate opportunity of playing alongside Dan Grunfeld and Joah Tucker, who currently play at Stanford and UW-Milwaukee, respectively. As if his tiny stature wasn’t enough to make him appear unnoticed, his spectacular teammates may have overshadowed his basketball skills.

Bronson, on the other hand, attributes much of his development as a player to playing with these two Division I recruits in high school.

“Being in high school, playing the point guard to two really, really, great Division I players made me better,” Bronson said. “They’re great guys and great players. To have back-to-back players of the year in the conference helped me compete at the highest level and definitely something I probably took for granted a little bit in high school.”

Bronson himself couldn’t even say that he was ever overlooked, much in part to the fact that he never really paid attention to any of the hype or publicity. While Bronson almost surely could have played basketball at a different school, albeit in D-II or -III, he never really looked into the other possibilities.

“I’m not really sure (I could’ve played at another school)”, Bronson said. “I didn’t look at other places that hard. I always got letters, but nothing really serious. I was asked to walk-on at certain places, but it was just in the early stages where it was just a maybe.”

Perhaps Bronson never looked at other schools because he had his heart set on attending the University of Wisconsin his whole life. While his family is torn between UW and Marquette, Bronson admits that he grew up a Badger and always wanted to be here in Madison.

“I’ve wanted to go here basically my whole life,” Bronson said. “My family’s kind of split between Marquette and Wisconsin. My mom works [at Marquette] as the tennis coach and my sister went there to play basketball and then my dad, my grandfather and my aunt all went here, so we’ve been following Badger sports throughout my life and that’s just what I wanted to do.”

Regardless of this family rift, Bronson always had some sort of a basketball influence in his life while growing up.

“Neither one of my parents played, but both my sisters did,” Bronson said. “My older sister played D-I at Marquette and my other sister had a D-I at Florida and then transferred to play at Cardinal Stritch in Milwaukee, so I grew up with basketball my whole life, I remember always going to games and playing against them.”

Aside from looking up to his siblings, Bronson idolized Muggsy Bogues as a child. Their likeness in physique inspired Bronson to try to emulate him on the basketball floor.

“I grew up looking up to actually Muggsy Bogues — it’s kind of funny,” Bronson said. “Just being as small as he is and how good of a player as he was and being able to control the floor, I thought it was just amazing.”

Now that the diminutive Bronson has overcome all the hardships as a smaller player, as did Bogues, he is simply looking to make himself and his teammates better each and every day. He doesn’t carry with him a big ego or cocky attitude because he clearly understands his role on the team, although he continues to stride and improve himself for the day when he may see significant minutes on the court for the Badgers.

“I mean, I think (my role on the team is) to prepare the starters, as well as those who are playing, for the team we’re playing and just to get better everyday and try and make my teammates better, basically,” Bronson said. “Just improve because, you know, maybe I’ll be in a position to play sometime.”