It certainly wasn't Evan Anderson's first time taking in a football game and visiting the University of Wisconsin campus.

It was, however, the junior's first time watching a night contest under the lights at Camp Randall when Wisconsin hosted Ohio State Saturday.

"It was a lot of fun," said the 2010 prospect and current Badger verbal. "I guess you could say there was a lot of spirit in that student section. Jump Around and everything that was going on there, it was just a real cool atmosphere to be around."

Widely considered the top in-state junior, Anderson, who gave his pledge to head coach Bo Ryan in May, joined fellow verbals Diamond Taylor (official), Mike Bruesewitz (official) and Vander Blue (unofficial) on visits this past weekend.

"It went pretty good, we all had a lot of fun at the game," Anderson said. "We got a chance to scrimmage, too, and play with all the guys during an open gym. We checked out the campus and got the whole tour. We hung out a little bit when we were able to."

Squaring off against Keaton Nankivil, J.P. Gavinski, Jared Berggren and Ian Markolf, the 6-foot-11, 245-pound center felt he performed well against the older players.

"I would say that I held my own pretty well," said Anderson, who chose UW over offers from Kansas, Kentucky, Marquette, Boston College and Iowa State. "Other than the fact that they're much stronger than I am at this point, I did OK. I made some mistakes here and there, but it's completely different playing against those guys down in the post."

With two more years of high school basketball left, Anderson is focused on a few areas of his game that need improvement.

"The biggest thing for me is just improving my strength and stamina," said Anderson, who reported he stayed in close contact with assistant coach Greg Gard during the summer. "Also, I need to work on my footwork, basically improve on those parts of my game. But it's going real well right now, I'm just trying to get to some open gyms and get some workouts in to prepare for the season."

Playing for one of the top AAU programs in the Midwest-the Wisconsin Playground Warriors-Anderson spent his summer traveling with a handful of Division I recruits.

Of that group, Chim Kadima (Iowa State verbal), Kameron Cerroni (UW-Green Bay verbal), Ben Mills (multiple offers) and T.J. Bray are expected to play at the top level in college.

"It's pretty cool to be able to talk about what's going on, and to play with a lot of Division I guys is a nice thing," Anderson said. "A lot of us are going through the same stuff, so we can bounce things back and forth."

Anderson is currently a four-star athlete and ranked as the 37th best player in the 2010 class.


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