Trey Burke Preseason All-American

According to ESPN, the AP has released its preaseason All-American list and Trey Burke has made the cut.  The Big Ten landed three players on the list with Cody Zeller, Deshaun Thomas, and Burke.  It is obviously going to be a strong year for the Big Ten, but landing three players on the list is impressive.

This is also a major accomplishment for Michigan and its program .  Michigan's last All-American was Jalen Rose in 1994 during the end of the Fab Five era.  That means it has been nearly two decades since Michigan had a player with these types of rankings and hype.  Of course, Burke has not made the final cut by any means, but even being considered in this company is significant

Preseason All-Big Ten Teams and Predictions

Today, the Preseason All-Big Ten teams and preseason rankings for the Big Ten were released.  None of the selections were too surprising, but I wanted to take this chance to make my own selections and predictions.  Typically, the preseason polls are relatively accurate, but they often have major errors and for this reason, I want to create my own Preseason All-Big Ten teams.  Of course, mine may be just as inaccurate as the teams the media's came up with this year, but I still selected my own teams just in case.

Before I can create my own lists, we should probably take a look at the lists that were selected by the media.  Overall, I think fans will have to generally agree with their assumptions, but I think there are some major problems with their list.  For instance, I have predicted that Ohio State will have a significant dropoff this season, but the media decided to select two players from the Buckeyes, which seems absolutely insane to me.  They have some quality players, but I really think that's going out on a limb.  Regardless, let's take a look at their list and predictions:

CBSSports Preseason Rankings: Michigan And Big Ten Breakdown

Earlier this week, CBS Sports released several lists look at the upcoming college basketball season.  Not only did they break down some of the elite teams, but they took a look at the best players across the nation and named their preseason All-American picks and their Top 100 players in the country.  Now, I don't make it a habit of responding to every preseason hype list or ranking, but I thought the way CBS laid out the rankings was quite interesting and I wanted to respond.

Their preview post had three parts; Preseason All-Americans, Top 100 Players, and Final Four Predictions. I'm only going to respond to the first two because responding to every expert's Final Four picks is simply ludicrous   Most of them will be off and it would simply take too much time to analyze each pick.  However, I thought the selections in the All-American and Top 100 players lists were pretty interesting and something I wanted to analyze.  So here are where Michigan and the Big Ten teams stacked up on both lists:

Previewing Big Ten Basketball: Indiana

My Big Ten basketball previews began a long time ago, but we're finally getting to the teams that are going to play the biggest roles in the 2012-2013 season.  Teams like Minnesota should be improved, but many of the teams that we've looked at such as Illinois, Nebraska, and Penn State shouldn't be major factors next year.  This time we're looking at Indiana, who is probably the hottest and most hyped team in the country right now.  They raced back to relevance last season, return a very talented bunch, and are bringing in a great recruiting class.  These factors are the primary reasons that they are currently projected as the #1 team in the nation by ESPN and as the favorite to win the Big Ten.


Most will point to last season as Indiana's return to relevance, but in reality, it began a lot earlier.  Since Tom Crean was hired on April 1, 2008 to be Indiana's head coach, he has really done a good job on the recruiting trail.  He's brought in great recruits in each one of his classes so far, despite bad performances in each of his first three seasons.  Getting in big-time names, even to a program like Indiana, is very difficult under those circumstances.  However, if you look at Indiana's projected 2012 starting lineup, they're well dispersed in Crean's recruiting classes.

• Jordan Hulls - 2009 class
• Christian Watford - 2009 class
• Victor Oladipo - 2010 class
• Will Sheehey - 2010 class
• Cody Zeller - 2011 class

Most of the experienced and successful teams are dispersed over several recruiting classes, but what makes this and Indiana's 2011-2012 season so impressive was the radical transformation for the Hoosiers.  Over Crean's first three seasons, Indiana beat only three teams that finished 6th or better in the Big Ten and recorded a 2-24 record against ranked teams.  Not many would have predicted that Indiana would have a great 2011-2012 season, which really shows the talent in Crean's recruiting classes.

Michigan Basketball Roster: Part III - Star Players

Photo Credit: CourierPress

Over the past few weeks I have been breaking down Michigan's basketball roster for next season and comparing it to other Big Ten teams.  In Part I, it analyzed the Big Ten's returning rosters and I concluded that Indiana probably has the best returners primarily because of their impressive depth.  In Part II, I analyzed the incoming recruiting classes and their potential impact.  I concluded that Michigan's class is probably going to have the biggest impact next season.  In this section, I'm going to be breaking down what defines most basketball teams, their star players.

There's probably no other sport that cements itself more around star players than basketball.  I'll give you a quick example.  Look at last season's national championship team, Kentucky.  They had some great players, but for the most part, Anthony Davis carried that team.  Compare that to Alabama's national championship football team.  There's no way anybody can say one player carried that team.  Whether star players are so important in basketball because of the team's size (5 vs. 11) is up for debate, but there is definitely a deep focus on star players in the entire sport of basketball, not just in college.

Having said this, let's look at the Big Ten.  Which star players are coming back, and which new recruits are most likely to become star players next season?  Well, as I've used in the last two posts, the best measure of returning stars is probably the All-Big Ten rankings.  Right now, there are 8 All-Big Ten players that will be returning next season.  However, for the purposes of this evaluation, a few of those should be removed because they only made one of the All-Big Ten lists.  For instance, Brandon Paul only made the coaches' list and Aaron Craft only made the media list.  Under most situations, I would count them, but when we're comparing star player status and role, you can't really make a case that they're better than people that made both lists.  This leaves us with 6 returning All-Big Ten players that we can breakdown.

	PPG	APG	RPG	SPG
Cody Zeller (IN)	15.6	1.3	6.6	1.4
Trey Burke (MI)	14.8	4.6	3.5	0.9
Tim Hardaway (MI)	14.6	2.1	3.8	0.5
Deshaun Thomas (OSU)	15.9	0.9	5.4	0.4
Keith Appling (MSU)	11.4	3.9	2.9	1.2
Drew Crawford (NU)	16.1	2.1	4.7	1.2

Among this mess of stats, there are some divisions that should strike the eye.  The first thing is that Cody Zeller and Trey Burke are a step above everybody else.  Next, that Deshaun Thomas is a step above the bottom three.  Obviously, stats should not be the only measure of a star player's role on their team, but I think most would agree that Zeller and Burke are probably the best returning players in the Big Ten.  In fact, they were the only players on the list above that made 2nd team All-Big Ten on both the coaches and media lists.  Thomas made it on the coaches' list, but fell to 3rd team All-Big Ten on the media list.  The other three only qualified as 3rd team All-Big Ten.

By now, I'm assuming most Michigan fans have spotted the other important element of this chart.  Michigan is the only team in the Big Ten returning more than one player that received all conference honors.  I spoke about this in great depth in Part I of my analysis, but it's the major reason that I believe there should be a debate about Michigan and Indiana's returning players.  Indiana certainly has a better cast coming back since they return 5 starters, but Michigan's 3 returning starters are probably more talented and have contributed more than Indiana's returners on average.

So Michigan has one of the top two returning players and is the only team returning more than one All-Big Ten player.  Does this mean Michigan will have the best star players next season?  One can't guarantee that, especially with the way college basketball now works.  A true freshman could end up being the best player around (cough cough Anthony Davis).  I'd like to take a short look at the incoming recruits and their chances to become star players next season.

As I spoke about in Part II, there are some great incoming recruits to the Big Ten.  However, because of the layout of certain teams and differing levels of college readiness, I highlighted only a handful that I thought would be able to make a significant impact next season and become a star player.  The most likely candidates are Gary Harris (MSU), Sam Dekker (WIS), Glenn Robinson III (MI), Mitch McGary (MI), and Adam Woodbury (IOWA).  All of these players were some of the Big Ten's highest rated recruits according to the ESPN 100 and have a great opportunity to get early playing time.

Indiana has some fantastic incoming recruits as well, but as I said in Part II, I think because of Indiana's immense depth, they are going to limited in their contributions.  Yes, they will probably be fantastic stars by time they graduate, but for next season, I think their contributions will probably be a bit limited.  Along with that, just about all of these highlighted recruits should play early and will likely make an immediate impact to their respective teams.

Once again, I'm sure Michigan fans have spotted the interesting note about these recruits.  Michigan is the only team with more than one player in the five incoming recruits I've highlighted.  I highly doubt both Robinson and McGary will be amazing right away, but I think there's a great chance at least one, most likely Robinson, will be great next year and earn that star player status.  Other recruits like Gary Harris from MSU will also have an amazing opportunity to contribute early and often.  He's a big-time player and I would be pretty surprised if he didn't earn a starting role very early.

Altogether, I think it's pretty clear that Michigan will probably have the best star players next season.  Does that mean they will be the best team?  Not at all.  It certainly helps to have some big time contributors, but look at the NBA.  Miami probably has the best star players in the league, but they didn't win the championship last season.  Michigan should have the best star players, since it has some amazing recruits with a chance to start early and is the only Big Ten team to return two players with all conference honors.

Michigan Basketball Roster: Part I - Returners

There's been a lot of early speculation following the recent announcements of many of the Big Ten's best players, such as Trey Burke and Jared Sullinger.  Most have pointed to Indiana as the Big Ten's best team for next season, but much of that has just been early season hype.  Indiana will be returning a ton of talent, especially in Cody Zeller, but there certainly is no set formula for determining the good and bad teams.

With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at how Michigan stacked up in returners against the rest of the Big Ten.  Michigan has received a lot of hype as well, not as much as teams like Indiana, but most of the experts at least think they're going to be one of the elite teams in both the Big Ten and the country next season.  I agree, primarily because of the immense amount of talent that is going to be in Ann Arbor in both returners and recruits.  Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway, Jr., and Jordan Morgan will all be back next season.  These three players constitute the majority of Michigan's scoring and assists and also the team's leading rebounder.

Returning three starters, even if they were probably the team's best players, doesn't guarantee that Michigan will be as good or better than last season, but it should be interpreted as at least a positive.  Let's compare these returns to the rest of the Big Ten.  As of now, only four teams in the Big Ten will be returning their top two scorers, leader in assists, and leader in rebounds for next season (Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois).  However, let's dig a little deeper.  I wanted to quickly compare what each of these teams were actually bringing back.  For instance, Illinois.  They return five starters, but they finished 10th in the Big Ten.  What they're bringing back probably isn't as good as what teams like Michigan or Indiana are returning (1st and 5th in the Big Ten).  

	Michigan	Indiana	Minnesota	Illinois
Big Ten Record	13-5	11-7	6-12	6-12
Big Ten Finish	1st	5th	10th	10th
Postseason Ranking	#22	#13	NR	NR
Returning Starters	3	5	5	5
Returning All-Big Ten Players	2	1	0	1

* - All-Big Ten Players are counted as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd teams


Obviously, this chart has a lot of information, but the important thing is to separate the measures of team success and the returning aspects.  A quick glance at Big Ten record, finish, and final rankings clearly show that Michigan and Indiana had much better seasons than Minnesota and Illinois.  To most fans, this will be no surprise, but it's important to state before looking at returning rosters.  Returning successful teams and good players is much more valuable than returning players on bad teams.  This may seem obvious, but like I said, it's important to note.

So, that leaves us with Michigan and Indiana.  I would go through Minnesota and Illinois' returning rosters, but let's be honest.  They are returning pretty weak squads.  The one note that should be made is that Minnesota had some early seasons troubles including an injury to Trevor Mbakwe, which probably skewed their results somewhat.  Regardless, I think it's safe to assume that even with Mbakwe, Michigan and Indiana probably would have finished a good chunk ahead of Minnesota.

Indiana had a better NCAA Tournament finish than Michigan, but I think one can make a strong argument that Michigan actually had the better season.  Not only winning the conference championship, but also being more consistent than Indiana over the season.  I will give the edge in success to Michigan, even though Indiana's season had some very exciting moments.

However, Indiana returns all of its starters, which is pretty impressive.  Michigan returns most of its starters, but Indiana will be returning more from this standpoint.  To most, this is the reason why Indiana will likely be ranked #1 to start next season.  This is certainly a logical argument, but I think it skips over the connection that I described above.  Not only do I believe that Michigan had a better team last season, evidenced by their conference championship and better record, but I think if you take a look at the returning players, one can make a strong case for Michigan over Indiana.

For instance, look at the two teams' returning All-Big Ten players.  Michigan actually has more than Indiana with Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway, Jr.  Indiana will have just Cody Zeller back.  Along with this, one can make a case that Burke will be the best returning Big Ten player next year.  However, just looking at these awards, you can at least strongly point to Zeller and Burke as about even.  Indiana's only other player that received love from the media and coaches' awards was Christian Watford, but I don't think many would argue that he is better than Hardaway.

Indiana may have two more returning starters, but I think Michigan's returners are better than Indiana's returners.  This is certainly something that is debatable, but I don't think you can argue that Indiana will have three returners that are better than the three Michigan is returning.  Some might ask why this matters when comparing returners.  It comes down to the basic argument; quality vs. quantity.  Indiana's returners are certainly talented, but I truly believe that Michigan's are better.  However, as noted, Indiana will have more coming back.  Maybe less talented on average than Michigan's starters, but they will have more.

There's obviously no way to prove who has the best returners, but I think using the arguments I've made above, one can certainly make a strong case that Michigan will have the best returning roster in the Big Ten. This does not mean Michigan will have the best roster for next season, but it is exciting to see that Michigan should at least be in the top of the league in returners, recruits, and overall roster for next season.  It is sure to be an exciting season for Michigan basketball.


Photo Credit: UMHoops