Bucky’s Fan Favorite Tournament: round one (East Region)

With actual basketball out of grasp, we at B5Q have put together a tournament challenge to determine the player that is the biggest fan favorite from the past 20 years of Wisconsin basketball.

For the first round, we split the voting into regions. We at B5Q will breakdown each matchup, and it is up to you the fans to vote and ultimately decide who moves on, and who is eliminated.

For the third region of the tournament we turn our attention to the South Region. Check out each pairing below, and vote for your favorite.

The voting window closes at 11:59 p.m. CT, Thursday, March 26, so get those votes in quick.

See the full, updated bracket with two regions in the books here —> Bucky's Fan Favorite Tournament Bracket.pdf

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(1) Frank Kaminsky vs. (16) Maurice Linton

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Kaminsky has his freaking number retired at the Kohl Center. He won the 2015 Wooden Award, Naismith Trophy, Oscar Robertson Trophy and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award. He was a consensus first team All-American. He was the B1G player of the year too. He was just the second player in UW history to post 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 100 blocks. His blocks total of 153 is the best in school history. He lead the Badgers to back-to-back Final Fours and was imminently quotable, self-deprecating and engaging with fans.

Easily one of the greatest Badger athletes, let alone basketball players, in university history.

Linton was a starter on the 2000 Final Four team. He averaged 4.5 points per game that season.

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(8) Mark Vershaw vs. (9) Charlie Wills

Vershaw was the leading scorer on the 2000 Final Four team, and the only one to average double digits btw. Looking at his game log, however, you’ll find that he did not have a particularly good Tournament that year. He played well against Arizona in the second round and, uh, that was kind of it.

Wills played in every game (129 straight) over his four-year career at Wisconsin (1998-2002) and started 61 of them. Wills is fourth on Wisconsin’s all-time games played list and averaged 5.2 rebounds per game during his senior season. He played 64 minutes over five games during the magical 2000 Final Four run and made two (2) shots for four (4) points total.

WHO SCORED ON THAT TEAM IN THE TOURNAMENT!?!?

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(5) Zak Showalter vs. (12) Travon Davis

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Showalter was a joy to watch play basketball. He was supremely athletic and had zero regard for his own personal safety if the ball was loose or a defensive play needed to be made. He was on the 2017 B1G All-Defense team, he did the “Title Belt” celebration to Aaron Rodgers, at Madison Square Garden, after hitting a three to send the NCAA Tournament game against Florida into OT, he took the charge against Xavier that set up Bronson Koenig’s game winning shot in the NCAA Tournament and was a spark of the bench in the NCAA Tournament comeback against Oregon.

The former walk-on ended up playing in 129 career games and started 72 straight at one point.

Davis was a lightly used point guard on the 2000 Final Four team who ended up playing in 101 career games for Wisconsin while averaging 3.8 ppg and 2 apg. During his senior season he averaged 7.8 ppg and 3.9 apg, which was good for seventh in the B1G.

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(4) Kirk Penney vs. (13) Jason Chappell

A native of New Zealand, Penney is one of the most beloved Badgers in the past few decades. He was a part of the 2000 Final Four team as a freshman and then won back-to-back conference titles as a junior and senior. For his career, he averaged 11.4 ppg, 4 rpg and 1.7 apg. During his senior season he averaged a career-high 16.2 ppg, 6 rpg and 3.1 apg.

He now coaches at UVa with Tony Bennett, whose father is Dick Bennett...who was the coach of the 2000 Final Four team. Try and keep up.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Better known as “J-Cheezy”, Jason Chappell, a native of New Berlin, was a solid role player for the Badgers in the early to mid 2000s. He averaged 3 ppg and 2.8 rpg for his career and had 18 blocks during the 2005-06 season which was good for No. 20 in the conference.

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(6) Kammron Taylor vs. (11) Ryan Evans

Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Another link in the long chain of Minnesotans wising up and heading to Madison for college, Taylor was a point guard for the Badgers from 2003 to 2007. Over his final two seasons for the Badgers he averaged 13.5 ppg, 2.8 rpg and 2.2 apg. Much like Brian Butch, I also rode the Ogg East elevator with Taylor a bunch of times. He isn’t nearly as tall as Butch. A lights out free throw shooter, Taylor also made the B1G all-tournament team in 2007.

Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images

Hailing from Phoenix, Ariz., Evans never missed a game in his entire career, playing in a school record 138 games. He was a consensus honorable mention all-conference performer in 2012 and made the 2013 B1G all-tournament team. During his senior season he averaged 10.1 ppg and 7.3 rpg (fifth in the B1G). He forgot how to shoot free throws his senior season as well and tried to fix it by taking jump shots from the charity stripe.

Evans was always a personal favorite player of mine and one who I thought could have been so much better. He was a tenacious rebounder and more than capable defender who could block shots and get his hands in passing lanes.

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(3) Mike Kelley vs. (14) WQuinton Smith

Kelley was one of the best defensive guards that Wisconsin has ever seen. During the 2000 Final Four run he had 19 steals in the Tournament. He also had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 23-4, and three of those turnovers came in one game! He has the top assist-to-turnover ratio in Wisconsin history (both career and single-season). He was the 1998-99 B1G Defensive Player of the Year and his 275 steals over his career are still a school record (and fourth in B1G history).

While he also wasn’t scoring for that Final Four team, he was almost definitely the one passing it to the guy who scored.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

I literally knew nothing about WQuinton Smith so here is UWBadgers.com: “Wquinton Smith orginally made the team through an open tryout process as a freshman in 2007, but worked his way into a part of UW’s rotation by his senior season. The back-up point guard appeared in 44 career games with one start, including 26 during his senior season. One of the strongest members of the team, Smith sets the Wisconsin basketball records for the guard position in both the bench press (310 pounds) and squat (475 pounds) in the summer of 2010.”

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(7) Jason Bohannon vs. (10) Tim Jarmusz

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

There are so many Bohannons that played/still play college basketball in the B1G it is hard to keep track. This Bohannon, a native of Marion, Iowa, was a sharp-shooting guard, who started all 33 games both his junior and senior year for the Badgers. After earning Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year honors in 2008, Bohannon followed that up by ranking third on the team with 10.3 points per game in 2009 and finishing his career 4th in UW history with 212 made 3-points. One of the conference’s best free throw shooters, he was also the Badgers’ most lethal 3-point threat. Has played in 135 career games (68 starts) and owns 58 career double-digit scoring games.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

I have long-standing beef with Tim Jarmusz and will not discuss him any further.

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(2) Jordan Taylor vs. (15) Dave Mader

Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

There are certain players who you remember specific plays for and Jordan Taylor is one of those players. At one point, my Facebook profile picture was of Taylor blocking Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen’s shot in the NCAA Tournament to secure a win. God, what a sweet picture that was.

Anyway, Taylor was the consummate point guard for the Badgers during his career. Did you know that he turned the ball over just 79 TOTAL times in 71 career Big Ten games? And that his 3.01 career assist-to-turnover ratio shattered the NCAA record (2.70 - Julyan Stone, UTEP, 2008-11)? And that his 3.83 assist-to-turnover ratio in 2010-11 led the nation and was the 4th-highest mark in NCAA history?

Taylor also made the all-B1G first team twice and was a national All-American in 2011. During his senior season he averaged 18.1 ppg (20.1 in just B1G games).

Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Sporting News via Getty Images via Getty Images

Mader had 235 career rebounds, 109 of which were on the offensive end. He was part of a Final Four, two regular-season Big Ten Championships and a Big Ten Tournament Champion in his five years at UW.