Johnny Davis named Big Ten Player of the Year

After earning a share of the Big Ten Conference regular season title, Wisconsin received a handful of postseason league honors on March 8, headlined by Big Ten Coach of the Year Greg Gard and Big Ten Player of the Year Johnny Davis.

In addition, Brad Davison earned second-team All-Big Ten honors, Chucky Hepburn earned Big Ten All-Freshmen Team distinction, and Tyler Wahl was awarded All-Big Ten honorable mention.

Gard was named Big Ten Coach of the Year for the second time in his career, and second in the last three seasons. He is just the second coach in UW history to win the award and first since 2015, joining four-time winner Bo Ryan (2002, 2003, 2013 and 2015).

Davis becomes the fourth Badger to be named Big Ten Player of the Year and the first since Frank Kaminsky in 2015. Davis joins Kaminsky (2015), Alando Tucker (2007) and Devin Harris (2004) as Badgers to win the award. He averaged 20 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game.

As Big Ten Player of the Year, Davis was a First-Team All-Big Ten honoree. Since 2002, Wisconsin has had a first-team All-Big Ten selection in 16 of 21 seasons. A total of 11 different players have earned a spot on the conference’s top team.

Since 2002, Wisconsin has earned 17 first-team All-Big Ten honors, which is the most of any school in the conference. Ohio State and Purdue are second with 15.

Davison received All-Big Ten distinction for the first time in his career, selected second team by the coaches and third team by the media. Davison is having the best year of his collegiate career and ranks second for UW averaging 14.2 points per game shooting 34.7% from beyond the arc.

In his first season with the Badgers, Hepburn started all 30 games of the regular season at point guard while averaging 8.1 points and 2.3 assists per game. Hepburn became the sixth Badger to earn Big Ten All-Freshman Team distinction and the first since teammate Brad Davison in 2018. Hepburn maintained a 1.9 assist-to-turnover ratio on the year.

Wahl earned All-Big Ten honorable mention for the first time in his career. Averaging 11.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, Wahl vastly improved his performance on the offensive end of the floor while remaining one of the most dominant defenders in the league.

Sophomore Jordan Davis was recognized with the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award.

Wisconsin begins postseason play this week as the No. 2 seed in the 2022 Big Ten Tournament. The Badgers will face the winner of No. 7 seed Michigan State and No. 10 seed Maryland on Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.