The last time John Tonje played in the NCAA Tournament, he was a junior part-time starter for Colorado State. Three years and two schools later, he’s now an All-American candidate for a Wisconsin program making its 26th NCAA Tournament appearance in the last 32 seasons.
It’s a rise to college basketball stardom he hasn’t quite come to terms with yet.
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The sixth-year senior dropped 32, 26 and 18 points in the three Big Ten Tournament games leading up to Sunday’s championship game, when he was bottled up for only nine points in a 59-53 loss to Michigan. That single-digit output is certainly an outlier for Tonje, whose 19.2 average for the season ranked fifth in the Big Ten, and has him as one of 15 finalists for the John Wooden Award and a likely All-American.
Him. pic.twitter.com/elvSe19hpE
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) March 15, 2025
It’s not such a bad thing to get a subpar performance out of the system before the main event, however. The Badgers were given a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s East Region, pitting them against Montana on Thursday at 1:30 p.m. ET in Denver. That first-round location will bring Tonje back to the same state his collegiate hoops journey began.
As a junior with CSU, he started only 12 games, including the postseason. He became a full-time starter in 2022-23, and was the team’s second-leading scorer with 14.6 per game, but the Rams missed the NCAA Tourney that year. With one season of eligibility left due to COVID, Tonje opted to use it at Missouri.
His 2023-24 season with the Tigers, however, lasted just eight games due to a recurring foot injury. He was given a medical redshirt, so he transferred to Wisconsin for one last run — and has become one of the top players in the country. Just four games into his Wisconsin career, he nearly broke a program record with a career-high 41 points against No. 9 Arizona on Nov. 15 (the record is 43).
“It’s hard to put into words. I just prayed before this game for God to give me courage, and I guess He did that and more,” Tonje told NCAA reporter Andy Katz after that game.
The next day, Tonje wrote on Instagram, “Stories get good when God is the author.”
View this post on Instagram
The sudden fame is something Tonje is still trying to grasp.
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe,” Tonje said last week amid the Big Ten Tournament. “Last night, I was reading an article about being All-American, which, I mean, doesn’t even look right. But, with work and my belief in God, I think anything’s possible.”
He has long expressed his faith in Christ through social media, even declaring “Jesus is King” in a pinned post on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
Tonje grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where his mother, Sara, is a pastor. In a Mizzou Hoops video posted last year, he said he was in church every Sunday, stayed long after services were over while Sara chatted with many of the churchgoers, and also went on mission trips.
While at Colorado State and Missouri, Tonje continued to grow in his faith by getting involved with the Athletes in Action campus ministry. His devotion was noticed by Missouri head coach Dennis Gates.
“He’s a young man who is God-fearing, a young man that has been involved in Athletes in Action, a young man who has always constantly prayed for his teammates, as well as our team, our program, our institution, and even strangers that he’s met here in the community,” Gates said in the video, adding that Sara has “done a tremendous job raising him.”
𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁: John Tonje
Learn more about @johntonje1 and his path from growing up in Omaha to Colorado State and then to his year at Mizzou #MIZ 🐯 pic.twitter.com/zaBpek21LB
— Mizzou Hoops (@MizzouHoops) March 13, 2024
When he left Omaha Central High School, the only Division I scholarship offer Tonje had was Colorado State. Now, after three schools and six years of college, he looks back on his basketball journey and knows his steps were ordered by God.
“God always has a plan and it always comes around, no matter if I’m ready for it or not,” Tonje said in the video. “So I feel like I have this level of calmness … knowing that it’s all gonna work out.”
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