Bucky’s Fan Favorite Tournament Elite 8: (4) Kirk Penney vs. (2) Jordan Taylor

With COVID-19 crushing everyone’s March Madness vibe, we at B5Q crafted our own tournament to determine which basketball player from the past 20 years was the biggest fan favorite.

With three rounds in the books, we are down to only eight former players still alive. It’s Elite 8 time!

For the Elite 8, we will be dropping one matchup each day, as the decisions become harder. We at B5Q will state the case for each player, and it is up to you the fans to vote and ultimately decide who moves on, and who is eliminated.

In the third matchup of the Elite 8, we turn our attention to the South Region. Just like the first three rounds, the voting window closes at midnight each day, so get those votes in quick.

You can check out the players still vying for the title in the complete bracket...Bucky's Fan Favorite Tournament Bracket.pdf.

Two great Wisconsin guards matchup with a berth in the Final Four on the line. 4-seed Kirk Penney is a Kiwi sharpshooter and 2-seed Jordan Taylor is a do-it-all point guard. Who ya got?

The case for Kirk Penney:

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.

The case for Jordan Taylor:

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). During his junior season he was second in the whole nation in turnover percentage and he also shot 42.9% from three on 175 attempts.

In the three seasons where he played more the 70% of the teams’ minutes he was in the top-200 for assist rate and top-100 for turnover rate each year. This was all happening while his usage was high too.