Wisconsin’s Johnny Davis Making His Case for College Basketball Player of the Year

Wisconsin Badgers sophomore guard Johnny Davis scored 26 points, grabbed nine rebounds and had five assists in leading the #23 ranked Wisconsin Badgers (12-2) to an 87-78 win over Iowa (11-4) in Madison on January 6th. This comes on the heels of Davis’ most impressive outing this season, a 74-69 victory at #3 Purdue on January 3rd. He scored a career high 37 points and hauled down 14 rebounds in the win over the boilermakers.

As a freshman last season, Davis averaged seven points per game in his 31 games. In 12 games this season, Davis is averaging 22.6 points per game, second in the country. He’s also averaging 7.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. He’s putting up big numbers against good teams; he scored 30 in a win over then #12 Houston in November and 24 in a loss at Ohio State in December. Davis was injured and did not play in Wisconsin’s other loss against Providence.

His performance this season is putting him in the running for College Basketball’s Player of the Year. It’s also fueling talk of him entering into the NBA draft. At this point, Davis is focusing on this season for the Badgers, but the talk is that he’ll likely declare for the draft if he’s a projected lottery pick, and almost certainly if he’s projected as a top five pick. If not, he’ll stick around another year.

Here’s the highlight reel for the Wisconsin-Purdue game: