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.]

COACH OF THE YEAR: JUWAN HOWARD

still making great ref-faces while masked [Campredon]

I'm inclined to say Howard should win for this moment alone:

Today sucks, so here's some comic relief. A clip of @JuwanHoward trying to explain to the refs what a euro step is ? pic.twitter.com/vXUypp7HuA

— Stephen Osentoski (@StephenToski) January 24, 2021

While I doubt I need to convince readers of this blog of Howard's merits, the case for me not being a homer: Michigan was not predicted to finish in first place and now are favorites to win the conference, both the offense and the defense rank in the top ten (stares at Iowa fans), he's built that team around a freshman center after a shortened offseason, he's still largely using another coach's recruits, he's installed excellent systems on both ends of the floor while still throwing out effective changeups, and every returning contributor has developed their game in a meaningful way.

Fran McCaffery has put together an incredible offense at Iowa—but they still can't defend and I can't get past that. If I had to choose someone other than Howard, I may even lean towards Ohio State's Chris Holtmann, who once again has made the whole much better than the sum of its parts; while I'd normally ding him for poor roster construction, OSU's had a streak of bad luck at point guard. 

Other contenders: Fran McCaffery, Chris Holtmann

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR: HUNTER DICKINSON

tfw the parameters of the award don't matter [Campredon]

Even when including transfers, this is an easy call. Dickinson is putting up the best numbers of any newcomer to the Big Ten and the numbers don't encapsulate his overall impact.

No freshman is the conference has played anywhere near Dickinson's level. The next-best freshman has arguably been Illinois guard Andre Curbelo, who comes off the bench to run the offense and gets plenty of help, with Ayo Dosunmu alongside him for the vast majority of his minutes and Kofi Cockburn usually out there too. Perhaps it's Keegan Murray, the rare Iowa player who plays some defense and looks to attack the rim instead of hoisting threes, and he does both things well. The other freshmen with consistent starting roles are one-dimensional outside shooters.

Minnesota transfer center Liam Robbins got the better of Dickinson in their rematch; Dickinson decidedly won the first round, however, and has been a more consistent contributor on both ends of the floor to a better team on both ends of the floor. Robbins has played four bad games out of his last six; the Gophers have lost each of those games. Teddy Allen makes a lot of bad shots for a bad Nebraska team that's only played five conference games because of COVID and lost all of them.

Other contenders: Liam Robbins, Teddy Allen, Keegan Murray

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: FRANZ WAGNER

sorry, did you want to pass it right here? [Campredon]

Most of the time, I'm inclined to give this award to a center. It's the most impactful defensive position on the court. Replacing a good defensive center with an average one can undo an entire team. Protecting the rim without providing too much help is the most important goal for a defense to accomplish.

But... sometimes there's a man. I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about Franz Wagner here. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's Wagner, on Michigan's defense.

Noticeably bigger than his listed 6'9/220, Wagner is functionally a power forward who can hold his own when switched onto the vast majority of Big Ten players. He's ninth in the league in block rate and sixth in steal rate. He's averaging the third-most defensive rebounds per game. He deflects an inordinate number of passes. He's a sneering pest who's turned the size of a bully. Perhaps most notably, while Michigan's defense takes a dip when Dickinson sits, it goes into a nosedive when Wagner is on the bench (via Hoop Lens, cupcakes removed):

Michigan is significantly better at defending two-pointers, creating turnovers, cleaning the glass, and avoiding fouls with Wagner out there using his go-go gadget arms. He's the havoc-creator on a defense that otherwise has a lot of solid positional defenders.

Wagner's the best defender by the eye test and by the advanced metrics—he leads the conference in defensive box plus-minus by a ridiculous 2.1 points. Here's an explanation of BPM—in short, it measures how many points per 100 possessions above or below average a player is worth using only stats taken from a traditional box score. Wagner is worth 7.1 points per 100 possessions above the average player just on defense.

Other contenders: Myles Johnson, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Kofi Cockburn, Liam Robbins, Aaron Wheeler, Aleem Ford, Darryl Morsell

SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR: JUSTIN AHRENS

okay, so he's not a rim protector [Campredon]

I'm admit that I had Chaundee Brown here in my first draft and I suspect he'll be my choice at season's end. Brown's offensive numbers have dipped a bit in Big Ten play, however, and that's left room for other candidates, some of whom may not be eligible for this by the end of the season because they'll have started too many games.

One such player is Justin Ahrens, Ohio State's designated bench gunner. No, he's not at all on Brown's level as a defender, but that's not why he's out there. Ahrens is on the court for one reason: to make it rain. He's shooting 34-for-67 from beyond the arc this season and that's not a fluke based on his career numbers. While he's been the rare turnover-prone Just A Shooter™ in his first two seasons at OSU, he's cut the mistakes out of his game, so his obscene shooting efficiency is now matched by a 139(!) O-Rating that ranks 12th in the country.

Ahrens is a limited player, of course. He's 1-for-2 on two-pointers this season and 4-for-5 from the line. He's tallied three total assists. What he does to defenses with his single elite trait, however, makes up for the one-dimensionality. The Buckeyes have the nation's fifth-ranked offense on KenPom and couldn't be there without the shooting contributions from Ahrens; when he's on the court, OSU's three-point shooting accuracy goes up 9.2 percentage points(!!!), per Hoop Lens, while also taking a significantly higher share of their shots from beyond the arc.

Injuries in the Buckeyes backcourt have led to five starts for Ahrens, including the last four games. Starting point guard CJ Walker returned to the court last weekend against Wisconsin, coming off the bench in his first action back after a hand injury had become too much to play through. If Walker can start again, Ahrens should stay eligible for this award. If not, it should be Brown's to lose.

Other contenders: Chaundee Brown, Jack Nunge, Tyler Wahl, Keegan Murray, Jerome Hunter, Gabe Brown

MOST IMPROVED PLAYER: PETE NANCE, NORTHWESTERN

using his length these days [Campredon]

Big men take time. That's a basketball maxim we must always keep in mind. Even as Northwestern tails off, Pete Nance remains a shining example.

For his first two seasons, Nance looked like an overmatched bust caught between positions—he didn't shoot well enough to make defenses respect him as a power forward and he didn't have the size and strength to play as a traditional post, even though Chris Collins tried to get him to do the latter with predictable results. As a sophomore, Nance shot 47% on 149 two-pointers, 30% on 101 three-point attempts, and provided replacement-level value—plug in a random try-hard and you'd at least get similar output.

Collins reshaped the offense this season in a way that's put Nance in position to excel as the center of a five-out attack. Instead of banging bodies with larger centers, Nance is taking those same guys off the dribble, turning his body/athleticism type from a negative into a positive. He's become just viable enough as a three-point shooter that he can't be left alone. His passing is one of the keys to NW's offensive success; at the same time, he's lowered his turnover rate for the third straight year. His defensive rebounding has improved, too.

With time and improved coaching, Nance is fulfilling his four-star potential.

Other contenders: Donta Scott, EJ Liddell, Izaiah Brockington

Updated Tiers

Last week's:

Tier I: Iowa, Michigan
Tier II: Wisconsin, Illinois
Tier III: Ohio State, Purdue, Minnesota
Tier IV: Indiana, Rutgers, Maryland
Tier V: Michigan State, Penn State, Northwestern
Tier VI: Nebraska :(

This week's

Tier I: Michigan, Iowa
Tier II: Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio State
Tier III: Purdue, Minnesota
Tier IV: Rutgers, Indiana, Maryland
Tier V: Michigan State, Penn State, Northwestern
Tier VI: Nebraska :(

As with the standings, little change as teams settle in and/or halt their programs. The only team to jump a tier is Ohio State in a move I strongly considered last week.

This Week's Schedule

All times Eastern. Uh, subject to change. I'm taking a few days off while Michigan sports are on pause so I've extended this one into next week.

Wednesday: PSU at OSU (7, BTN), Wisconsin at Maryland (9, BTN)
Thursday: MSU at Rutgers (7, FS1)
Friday: Iowa at Illinois (9, FS1)
Saturday: Wisconsin at PSU (3, BTN), Minnesota at Purdue (7:30, BTN)
Sunday: MSU at OSU (1, CBS), Rutgers at Northwestern (7:30, BTN)
Tuesday, Feb. 2: PSU at Wisconsin (7, FS1), Illinois at Indiana (7, ESPN2), Purdue at Maryland (8, BTN)
Wednesday, Feb. 3: Nebraska at MSU (7, BTN)
Thursday, Feb. 4: OSU at Iowa (7, ESPN-affiliated network TBA), Minnesota at Rutgers (9, BTN)