Dairyland Madness: Top 2000s performances – Elite Eight

Dairyland Madness is down to the Elite Eight. Only two performances remain in each region and one will go to the Final Four.

This round of the bracket features essentially four championship matches from each region. The Packers, Badgers, Bucks, and Brewers will each crown a champion from their region and send them to the Final Four to compete against the other great performances.

There are some great matchups here. There are crazy statistical games and there are a few performances that were important because of the significance of the game they were in. What we do know for sure is that all of these deserve to be here and will pose some great matchups and tough voting decisions.

As always find us on Twitter at Dairyland Express to vote or click the link at the end of the article.

Green Bay Packers Region

#1 Brett Favre 399 yards 4 TDs 2003 vs. #11 Aaron Rodgers Super Bowl MVP

It all comes down to Farve versus Rodgers for Packers’ greatest performance of the 2000s. Who would want it any other way? Both of these games are great statistically, but the circumstances set them apart from the other 14 performances in the region. Favre beat Rodgers’ magical one-legged comeback in week one of 2018 by taking 51 percent of the vote. This game was equally as magical, with Favre slinging the ball all over the field after the death of his father. Just playing would have been enough for most people, but Favre wanted to honor his dad and he did just that.

Can he beat Rodgers two rounds in a row? This one comes in the form of a Super Bowl MVP performance. Rodgers’ entire season that year was ridiculous and he delivered in the biggest game of them all. He lifted the Packers to one of their four Super Bowls and has become a huge Cinderella in this tournament.

Milwaukee Brewers Region

#1 C.C. Sabathia 1-hitter 2008 vs. #2 Ben Sheets CG 18 K’s 2004

It’s the well-anticipated matchup between the best two pitched games since Juan Nieves’ no-hitter. This is also the only region that features a #1 vs. #2 seed matchup in the Elite Eight. Sabathia nearly had the first no-hitter since Nieves on a ground ball that was hit in his vicinity that was ruled an error instead of a hit. That was his only blemish of the day, however.

Sheets’ 18 strikeouts are actually even more rare than a no-hitter. It’s a feat that’s been accomplished far fewer times in the MLB. However, he gave up two more hits than Sabathia did and one of them was a home run. Unfortunately for Sheets, that means that he will have to battle a no-hitter with a game that wasn’t even a shutout. Are the strikeouts enough?

Milwaukee Bucks Region

#5 Giannis Antetokounmpo 44 points for his dad 2017 vs. #3 Brandon Jennings 55 points 2009

This is the only region that features a matchup not including the number one seed. The top seed in this region, Giannis Antetokounmpo and his 52-point 16-rebound outing, were dethroned by…Giannis Antetokounmpo. It was, no doubt, because of the emotional factor in the game. Just like Favre, he had a phenomenal game following his father’s passing and it’s one that we will all remember for a while as well as his game-saving block on Jusuf Nurkic with under two seconds to go.

That game will face probably the most famous game in Milwaukee Bucks’ regular season history. Last round, Jennings beat Michael Redd’s franchise-record 57 point performance with this 55-point outburst. What put him over the top was definitely the nostalgia we all feel and the hope that it gave every Bucks’ fan that we had finally gotten a star.

Wisconsin Badgers Region

#1 Melvin Gordon 408 yards 4 TDs vs. #11 Frank Kaminsky 20 points against undefeated Kentucky

It’s the final Wisconsin Badgers faceoff as football takes on basketball. Last round, Gordon beat Jim Sorgi and Lee Evans to become the top football performance. His 408 yards broke the FBS record, but only stayed as the record for one week. Even so, he broke a national record, but will his stats beat Kaminsky’s Final Four performance?

Kaminsky beat…Frank Kaminsky to get here. In a matchup of stats versus a big game, his huge 20 points in the Final Four beat a mostly unimportant 43 points in an early season game. This is the top Wisconsin Basketball performance, and it’s shown the ability to beat pure stats but can it pull out a win against a record-breaking game? Time will tell.