Brad Davison, enjoying a fifth season at Wisconsin, faces home-state Gophers again

Brad Davison's been around Wisconsin and Big Ten basketball so long that the nickname "Grandpa" given to him by teammates is catching on across the league.

"He has been around forever," said first-year Gophers coach Ben Johnson, who recruited Davison in high school in Minnesota. "It feels like he's had that 'Wisconsin' on him for a long time, which is never fun because he's always won."

On Sunday in Madison, Wis., Davison will play against the Gophers for the seventh time. His teams have four wins in the Border Battle. Getting another crack at his home state program is one perk to coming back for a fifth season for the 22-year-old Maple Grove native.

Extending his college basketball career gave Davison another opportunity to show he's "not as old as everyone thinks I am" by playing at an even higher level.

The No. 11 Badgers (16-3, 7-2 Big Ten) have given their young-at-heart veteran leader an opportunity to contend for another Big Ten title and solidify his legacy. Thursday's 73-65 win at Nebraska put Wisconsin in a tie for first place in the conference with Illinois, and meanwhile Davison became the program's all-time leading three-point shooter.

"It's awesome," Davison said. "I don't usually pay much attention to individual records and milestones, but I've had a lot of great teammates here. I put a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of work into my shot."

'My decision'

Teammates who were around for many of Davison's big shots the past four years have moved on to play professionally, including Lakeville's Nate Reuvers, who is in Croatia.

Davison's decision to come back was his own. He didn't try to persuade Reuvers, who had joined the Badgers with him as high-profile freshmen from Minnesota five years ago. Their basketball careers were on different paths.

"I had a little bit different perspective in basketball," Davison said. "Growing up, I never had the goal and desire to play professionally. My goal was always to play college basketball at the highest level. Compete for conference championships and make deep NCAA tournament runs. That's been my dream. The way I looked at it was another opportunity to live out my dream."

Dreams of winning a Big Ten title were realized in Davison's junior year, when the Badgers ended the regular season with eight straight victories before postseason play was canceled because of the pandemic.

After his 29-point game helped the Badgers beat North Carolina in the opening round last season, the final game of Davison's college career could've been a 3-for-11 performance in an NCAA tournament second-round loss to eventual national champion Baylor in March.

But Davison, who got engaged to former Indiana player and Wisconsin-Milwaukee assistant Tyra Buss in July, needed only a few weeks talking with family to make a decision. He announced in mid-April he'd take advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted by the NCAA during the pandemic to suit up for the Badgers one more time.

A much younger squad desperately needed Davison's experience, but he allowed Johnny Davis and Lakeville's Tyler Wahl to assume leadership roles entering the season.

"We realized there was a lot of minutes out there, a lot of points to be scored, a lot of different things across the board," Davison said. "So I didn't think there was one person who could fill those."

Breakout year

Big Ten media were not high on the Badgers even with Davison back, picking them to finish 10th in October.

But Wisconsin coach Greg Gard's squad went from unranked in the preseason to as high as No. 8 in the country. Early NCAA tournament bracket projections have Wisconsin a No. 3 or 4 seed.

Davis' emergence into an All-America and national player of the year candidate is at the forefront of this surprise Badgers season. Entering Sunday's matchup with the Gophers (11-6, 2-6), Davison is playing the best basketball of his career.

He's averaging a career-high 15.7 points, including 20.3 points per game on 57% three-point shooting in the past four games. Davison led the Badgers with 21 points against the Cornhuskers on Thursday, including 17 in the first half, when Davis was scoreless.

"I obviously recruited him and watched him in high school," said Johnson, who offered Davison a scholarship as Richard Pitino's assistant with the Gophers. "Ultimate competitor. Leader. Has done a really good job at Wisconsin during his tenure. He'll be up for the game Sunday just like we will."

Davison's reputation for getting under the skin of opposing crowds precedes him, but his second farewell Big Ten tour has been especially about reflection, even playing the rival Gophers again.

"When he recruited me at the University of Minnesota, I had a really good relationship with Coach Johnson," Davison said. "He's got a lot of the same roots. He knows a lot of the same people I do, so I'm rooting for him. Except for those two games where we play him. But nothing but love there."