Presenting Your 2022 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Name Of The Year

During the Big Ten Tournament, we held a concurrent tournament of our own to determine the Big Ten Name of the Year.

I, of course, am a longtime fan of the original Name Of The Year tournament. (We missed you last year, NOTY. Where have you gone?)

I just couldn’t help but notice as I watched this season that we seem to have some delightfully whimsical names in this conference.

To that end, I threw together this tournament. The results are as follows:

Those numbers under the winners are the vote totals.

There were a number of storylines, such as Carter Higginbottom’s unforeseen run from the 14 seed, and Ohio State’s early exit (who’d have ever thought?). Voters made their preferences of the seeding known, and there were many early round blowouts.

The final took place Sunday pitting the 1 against the 2 seed.

Kofi Cockburn faced pretty stiff resistance for a 2 seed, but after squeaking out a one-vote victory against upstart Higginbottom, his luck ran out against the buzzsaw that was Fatts Russell.

The closest that Fatts ever came to losing was a mere 78-40 win against Wilhelm Breidenbach.

Fatts and Boo are nicknames, but they’re nicknames that each competitor uses as a first name. They’re never addressed as anything else by media. This, in our view, counts.

User larry31 gives us this background on how Daron Russell got his nickname:

He was a fat baby. His mom had jokingly referred to him as Fats in front of a friend “as in “just a sec, I gotta feed Fats” or “just a sec, I gotta changes Fats’ diaper.” And the name stuck. The fact that he is no skinny and fast makes it a perfect nickname. Real name is Daron.

Congratulations, Fatts. You showed the ability to take over a game on the court, and things were no different here.