hunter dickinson is not a typical freshman big man

Scores from last week (home team listed second):

• Rutgers 51, Nebraska 72
• Illinois 76, Michigan 53
• Wisconsin 69, Purdue 73
• Indiana 58, MSU 64
• Minnesota 65, PSU 84
• Northwestern 60, Maryland 55
• MSU 50, Michigan 69
• Nebraska 64, Iowa 102
• Illinois 73, OSU 68
• Indiana 58, Purdue 67
• Rutgers 77, Minnesota 70 (OT)
• Michigan 64, MSU 70
• Wisconsin 73, Iowa 77
• Nebraska 78, Northwestern 79
• PSU 66, Maryland 61

As you're probably aware, Illinois closed strong enough to whinge about Michigan ducking, uh, Northwestern, Penn State, and Indiana. Purdue, meanwhile, took advantage of Ohio State's tough late-season schedule to slip past them for the #4 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. On the other end, Maryland stumbled to the finish line, though they're still in good shape for an NCAA bid.

The Final Regular Season Standings

Indiana and Minnesota are missing the tournament barring miracle BTT runs. Incidentally, there are rumors that both Archie Miller and Richard Pitino will be looking for new jobs this offseason.

The Actual All-Conference Awards

Are a debacle. They will be discussed in a separate post.

[Hit THE JUMP for awards that make sense.]

An arena staffer took out his mop, cleaned up a puddle, and erased the last vestige of the most prolific offensive player in the country from the Crisler Center. That small, salty lakelet was all that remained of Luka Garza, a man who scored 44 points in this building last season. He was held to just 16 tonight, his first live encounter with Michigan’s freshman big man Hunter Dickinson, as Michigan rolled over the best Iowa team of Luka's lifetime.

Dickinson and Garza practiced against each other all summer, and came into this game 6th and 1st in the Kenpom Player of the Year standings, which rely heavily on offensive output and usage. Dickinson won. The battle was decided in the first two possessions, as Iowa isolated Garza on Dickinson, and got two hopeless airballs for their trouble. A few trips later Dickinson blocked Luka's spin-and-under try so authoritatively that Garza went flying into the baseline and Michigan got a run-out (that would have been a dunk but for Iowa guard Connor McCaffery comically hugging Dickinson’s waist to draw a floor foul just in time). The first test—whether Michigan’s kid big  could single-up the best post player in the country—passed with peacock colors.

The second test was whether they could keep Dickinson on the court against the Big Ten’s top foul magnet, and that proved more difficult. An early foul put Dickinson on the bench for the next 8 minutes, and backup center Austin Davis picked up two quick whistles of his own, which led to a few minutes of Brandon Johns and Terrence Williams. Dickinson returned, but picked up his second foul late in the half when Mike Smith gave up a back-cut, limiting him to just 11 minutes in the frame. For all his efforts, Michigan led just 32-29 lead at the half.

A quick third foul, a fluke off a contested rebound that Garza managed to volleyball into the basket, brought up the big third question: could someone else please step up.

Enter Franzman [Campredon]

Franz Wagner did, emphatically. As Dickinson sat back down, Wagner went to work, swooping through hopelessly outclassed defenders and finishing on three straight possessions. He then canned a three when Connor McCaffery rolled an ankle on Austin Davis’s foot, capping a four-minute, nine-point outburst that staked Michigan to a 48-39 lead. Iowa also lost backup big Jack Nunge to a leg injury earlier. Nunge later returned on crutches.

Dickinson returned, but now it was the Franz show. As his swooping drives drew defenders, Franz converted to dishing dimes. His four assists easily could have been seven, but for a few missed layups and Eli clanging his thunderdunk attempt. The fourth assist was the prettiest, a driving bounce pass to Livers, who began said breakout with a steal, and ended it with a dunk that killed Iowa’s last good run. Wagner would finish with 21 points on 13 shot equivalents, going 2/3 from the arc. Livers scored 16--the same as Luka Garza--on let's say fewer possessions.

Danke. Bitte. [Campredon]

Neither Juwan nor Iowa’s Fran McCaffery had to do much whiteboarding, both spending a solid portion of their TV time jawing at the officials. McCaffery’s grand plan was to trap a lot, which led to one 10-second violation turnover, and four easy assists in Michigan’s box score. Fran also picked up a technical. Juwan was close to one or two himself. In fairness to them, there wasn’t much to coach with the Dickinson-Garza fight on. When Michigan tried a zone, they doubled Garza, and Garza dribbled it to an open Weiskamp for Iowa's only easy bucket of the night.

That and ten minutes against the backups couldn't salvage Garza's erasure. His final statline: 5/17 from two, 16 points on 23 possessions, 2 turnovers, three offensive boards, one defensive rebound, one assist, and one foul, that an early hook-and-hold.

Loosed from Garza’s gravity, Michigan’s wings and guards were free to drive Iowa’s more-than-complementary shooters away from their favorite perches. Isaiah Livers, Chaundee Brown, and Mike Smith were particularly relentless, forcing Joe Wieskamp, CJ Fredrick, and Jordan Bohannon respectively into drives and spot-up attempts over a sea of arms. Wagner was just as much a freak on this side of the court, notably recovering off a defensive breakdown to bat an attempted entry pass to Garza out of bounds earlier in the game.

About the only thing that didn’t go right for Michigan was offense from the bench after Davis. Terrence Williams got five first-half minutes at the four, but found little to show for it. Iowa immediately identified the freshman, who came in shooting 1/10 from three, as a guy you can leave alone. Williams got two very clean shots off doubles on the post, but missed them both. He also flubbed a switch on the other end that led to Luka Garza’s lone three in the frame.

Brandon Johns, who’s been playing most of his minutes at the four lately, was used to spell Dickinson and Davis at the five. Losing a few rounds to Garza when you’re normally not a center was understandable. Reacting a beat too late to several gorgeous opportunities set up by Eli Brooks was less so. Johns at least got his moment of redemption, getting a rattlesome jumper over Garza to go before the under-8 timeout. That friendly bounce stretched the lead to 62-46, and send Dick Vitale into a rendition of Hail to the Victors, a horrific sonic assault surpassed only when he following it with the Notre Dame victory march. Never have so many so welcomed a TV timeout.

Dickinson came back from his third bench banishment for the assist portion of Franz Hour, and tallied one his own, skip-passing out of a double to an open Chaundee Brown to turn his friends’ big lead into a laughable one. The final dagger—a 2020-21 Michigan Special—was a Livers-Smith-to-Livers reverse three with Hunter Dickinson drawing extra attention in the post. That pushed the lead to 73-54, got Livers his fourth made triple in five attempts, and Smith his fourth assist on the night to match Wagner.

Iowa—offensive juggernaut Iowa—also finished with just four assists.

Indiana’s next.

[Box score and more of Marc-Gregor’s work after THE JUMP]

The scores from last week (home team listed second):

• Maryland 63, Michigan 87
• Purdue 67, OSU 65
• PSU 65, Illinois 79
• Northwestern 52, Wisconsin 68
• Indiana 81, Iowa 69
• Rutgers 67, PSU 75
• Michigan 70, Purdue 53
• OSU 74, Wisconsin 62
• Maryland 63, Minnesota 49
• Northwestern 78, PSU 81
• Rutgers 74, Indiana 70

Your big winner of this week was (sigh) Michigan, the only team to play two games and get through unscathed—and they did so with two blowouts, one over a surging Purdue squad. They'll hang onto first place in the conference through the department-wide pause because Iowa's shooters went cold while their defense gave up 1.18 points per possession to Indiana.

The Hoosiers, naturally, turned around and lost at home to Rutgers. Wisconsin, meanwhile, fell another game behind the Wolverines with a home loss to Ohio State. The Buckeyes were nipped at home earlier in the week by the same Purdue team that Michigan hammered a few days later. Maryland got similarly smashed by the Wolverines, then dominated Minnesota on the road.

If you're having a tough time making sense of this conference, you're not alone.

The Standings

I've added NET rankings and records versus quartile 1 and 2 opponents.

*Torvik includes projections for games that have been postponed, KenPom only includes those that have been rescheduled.

Movement in both the standings and in the advanced rankings is becoming less drastic from week to week as teams settle in and we get more data on them. There's less divergence between KenPom and Torvik in their team and unit rankings. We also had a couple programs on pause because of COVID, which added to the static nature of the week.

Midseason-ish Awards: The Usual Categories

a Bucket™ [Campredon]

With Michigan forced into a pause, this is as good an opportunity as I'll have to hand out some midseason Big Ten awards. While these take into account play over the full course of the season, I'm putting a heavy emphasis on performance in conference games, though given the shape of the schedule this year that was probably gonna happen regardless.

Today, I'll cover the usual award categories. Later this week, I'll have another post with some less traditional fare, like Most Glorious Disaster Factory and Extreme Just A Shooter™, as well as all-conference selections. This one is dominated by the team in first place.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: LUKA GARZA

Garza is the engine of the league's top offense by some distance. He's averaging 25 points, nine boards, and two assists in Big Ten games. He's by far the leader in the KenPom Player of the Year standings and is expected to clean up the voter-determined national player of the year awards as well.

This isn't ignoring Garza's below-average defense at the most important defensive position on the court, either. His offense is so overwhelming that he's still the easy choice. He bears one of the biggest offensive loads in the country and is still one of its most efficient players.

Unlike a lot of centers, Garza's essentially never in foul trouble, and that's not at all the case for his counterpart—he draws 6.9 fouls per 40 minutes, often swinging games by forcing opponents to defend him with their backup bigs. By avoiding foul trouble himself, Garza is able to play over 80% of the team's minutes in conference games, and that even undersells his availability because of Iowa's frequent blowout wins. His presence also opens up the arc for his sharpshooting teammates, who are making 40% of their three-pointers. He's the toughest player to gameplan against in the country.

Other contenders: Trace Jackson-Davis, Ayo Dosunmu, Trevion Williams, Hunter Dickinson, Kofi Cockburn, but this really wasn't close

[Hit THE JUMP for a lot of Michigan, I swear I wasn't trying to be a homer. Also, new tiers and this week's schedule.]