Bucky’s Fan Favorite Tournament Sweet 16: (1) Alando Tucker vs. (5) Josh Gasser

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 two rounds in the books, we now enter crunch time. It’s the Sweet 16 baby.

For the Sweet 16, we will be dropping two pairings from a singular region each day in separate articles. 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.

Today, we turn our attention to the West Region. Just like the first two 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.

The first contest in the West Region is between Wisconsin’s all-time leading scorer No. 1 seed Alando Tucker and No. 5 seed Josh Gasser

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The case for Alando Tucker:

First and foremost, Alando Tucker is Wisconsin’s all-time leading scorer with 2,217 points, in 134 career games. Tucker overtook Michael Finley as the school’s all-time leader as a senior, when he was the B1G Player of the Year and was in the running for multiple national player of the year awards.

Tucker played in four NCAA Tournaments, reaching the Sweet 16 as a freshman and the Elite Eight in his sophomore campaign. As a senior, Tucker led the Wisconsin Badgers to their highest seed (No. 2) in school history.

Tucker joined the UW coaching staff this past season, following Howard Moore’s tragic accident which left an opening on the staff. Prior to joining the staff, Tucker served as UW’s Director of Student-Athlete Engagement since February of 2018. He worked with incoming student-athletes and their families to enhance how they acclimate to life at UW and in the community, in addition to sharing information about and using UW resources.

For his career Tucker averaged 16.5 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.6 assists while shooting 48 percent from the field in 134 games.

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

The case for Josh Gasser:

By the time Josh Gasser, a Port Washington native finished his career at Wisconsin, he had re-written all of Wisconsin’s career service records, making the most career starts (144), playing in the most career games (148) and playing the most minutes (4,774).

Gasser recorded the first triple-double in Wisconsin history, as a freshman, when he tallied 10 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds on Jan. 23 at Northwestern.

Captain America also was a two-time All-B1G Defensive Team selection and, at the time of graduation, he joined Michael Finley as the only two players in school history to score 1,000 points, record 500 rebounds and dish out 250 assists. Gasser also finished his career ranked No. 10 in UW history by shooting 40.2% from 3-point range and third in Badgers annals with a 2.25 career assist-to-turnover ratio.

Gasser, who missed the 2013 season with a knee injury had arguably the most successful four-year NCAA Tournament career with Wisconsin, as the Badgers reached the Sweet 16 in Gasser’s freshman and sophomore seasons and then the Final Four during his junior season and were the national runners-up, during his senior season.

Overall, Wisconsin went 13-4 with Gasser in the NCAA Tournament and were never worse than a No. 4 seed in the tournament.

For his career, Gasser averaged 7.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.9 assists while shooting 45 percent from the field in 148 career games.