Wisconsin Herd add through the G League Draft ahead of 2019-20 season

By Jordan Treske | Oct 26, 2019

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JULY 08: Stephen Thompson Jr #8 of the Dallas Mavericks in action against the Sacramento Kings during the 2019 Summer League at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 08, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /

As they prepare for the start of their 2019-20 campaign, the Wisconsin Herd continued to fill out their roster through this year’s G League Draft early Saturday afternoon.

Milwaukee Bucks basketball is officially back and the same will soon be said for their G League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd.

Over recent weeks, the Herd have slowly filled out their roster ahead of their 2019-20 G League campaign through the help of their parent club as many of their training camp invitees like Jaylen Adams, Jemerrio Jones, Luke Maye and Rayjon Tucker are expected to play sizeable roles for the Herd after being waived over the last week.

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Add in their two-way players Frank Mason III and Cam Reynolds and first-year Herd coach Chase Buford already has a good picture for how the roster will look heading into the start of his first training camp Monday.

The Herd took the next step in getting ready for their upcoming campaign by taking part in the 2019 G League Draft Saturday afternoon.

Wisconsin recently did some wheeling and dealing of draft picks, including acquiring the rights to Jones from the South Bay Lakers. While that left them without any first round picks, the Herd still had plenty of draft selections at their disposal, starting in the second round with the 30th overall pick.

With that choice, the Herd selected Oregon State product Stephen Thompson Jr. Over his four years for the Beavers, the 6’4 guard put up some productive numbers as he averaged 14.6 points on .425/.340/.681 shooting splits, 3.3 rebound, 2.5 assists and 1.5 steals in 121 total appearances over those four years.

And Thompson capped off his collegiate career in style as he was named to the 2019 All-Pac-12 second team. After going undrafted in this year’s draft, the Los Angeles native played for the Dallas Mavericks’ Summer League squad in Las Vegas where he got limited playing time but scored 13 total points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field (2-for-5 from long range).

For the second of their two selections Saturday, the Herd immediately tabbed Shannon Bogues with the 31st overall pick after picking Thompson with the previous choice. Bogues rose through the ranks over his collegiate career by first making a name for himself in the junior college ranks playing for McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas.

After blazing quite the trail over his two years at McLennan, which included being named an NJCAA Honorable All-American in 2017, Bogues transferred to Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches for his junior and senior seasons.

Bogues’ star only grew playing for the Lumberjacks as he grew into a key cog over the last two seasons, eventually averaging 16.5 points on a .461/.362/.790 slash line, 2.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.3 steals over his 65 total appearances. And like Thompson, Bogues finished out his collegiate career by being named to the All-Southland Conference second team.

The 22-year-old did land with the Phoenix Suns for this year’s Summer League squad, but didn’t see any action on the court, unfortunately.

After both picking Thompson and Bogues with back-to-back picks, the Herd elected to pass on their following draft picks, which closed out their draft day. It should be noted that both Bogues and Thompson both took part in this year’s G League Invitational where they surely caught the eye of Herd general manager Dave Dean and the rest of the Herd’s front office, all of which paved the way for both to land in Oshkosh for the coming season.

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With both Thompson and Bogues on board now, the Herd will continue getting ready for their third G League season and we’ll see what the two undrafted rookies and the squad as a whole will do under Buford when their season kicks off on Friday, November 8 versus the Windy City Bulls at Menominee Nation Arena.

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