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: MSU

As we arrive in East Lansing, we are nearing the completion of this early preview series on the Big Ten.  I've talked about some teams that I think will play a big role next year like Indiana, some that should drop-off like Ohio State, and teams that should have little to no impact like Nebraska.  The Spartans present an interesting scenario for next season.  They have living Big Ten legend Tom Izzo as coach and haven't missed the NCAA Tournament since 1997, but will need to make some key replacements for next season.  MSU had its low points during last year, but ultimately entered the NCAA Tournament as a #1 seed and had a pretty decent tournament run, even considering the team's high seeding.


Expectations were low to begin 2011 and there weren't many out there that thought MSU would be a big factor both in the Big Ten and the nation.  However, as the season progressed, MSU really started to excel. They began the year with an 0-2 record, but those were against ACC powerhouses North Carolina and Duke.  MSU dominated following this poor start, winning the next 15 games, including their first 4 Big Ten games.  Many thought OSU would be the Big Ten favorite throughout all of last year, but after the first few games, MSU was certainly the front-runner.  OSU, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan all had losses in the first few games.  On the other hand, MSU was undefeated and had beaten Indiana and Wisconsin.  What made this even more impressive was that Indiana had already beaten OSU and Michigan as well.

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.