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The Case For Indiana’s Yogi Ferrell As Big Ten Player Of Year

By Jacob Rude

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Let’s not pretend: when the vote totals come in at the end of the season, Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky will take home the trophy for Big Ten Player of the Year, and maybe rightfully so. However, it isn’t (or shouldn’t be) as clear cut a race as you may think.

In November, the Indiana Hoosiers were already dead in the water. A new-to-campus freshman Emmit Holt had just been involved in an accident with sophomore forward Devin Davis, leaving the latter hospitalized and in critical condition. This was the tail-end of a bad off-season for Tom Crean, which started off with two other players being arrested for trying to sneak into a bar with fake IDs.

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We ourselves predicted a ninth-place finish for the Hoosiers in the conference, unsure of what to expect from Crean’s young squad. However, he has gotten his youngsters motivated and focused this season and appears to return to the NCAA tournament after a one-year absence. And it’s all due in large part to his fearless point guard Yogi Ferrell.

While Ferrell’s scoring this year has taken a slight dip, he’s averaging the most assists and rebounds of his career while shooting his highest percentages from the field, three-point land, and the charity stripe. His player efficiency rating is far and away at his highest, as is his true shooting and effective field goal percentages. His 4.0 win shares rank him 12th in the nation, indicative of the effect he’s had on the team this year.

In the conference landscape, Ferrell is 5th in points per game, 4th in assists a game, and is 3rd in made three-point field goals. His 472 points produced trail only D.J. Newbill out of Penn State and D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State, and his offensive rating of 127.6 is 4th in the Big Ten, but he’s the top guard on the list.

Taking a step away from the statistical landscape, Ferrell has been the leader the Hoosiers lacked last year. I wrote an article in mid-December regarding Ferrell’s step up into a leadership role, but he has continued that trend throughout the season.

When the Hoosiers need a big shot, Ferrell is there. When the Hoosiers have a big match-up, Ferrell shows up.

When the Hoosiers need a big shot, Ferrell is there. Look no further than their game against Georgetown where Ferrell’s two threes at the end of regulation forced overtime. When the Hoosiers have a big match-up, Ferrell shows up. Look no further than the Maryland game, where the Hoosiers throttled the then-ranked 13th Terrapins thanks to 7-8 shooting from beyond the arc by Ferrell.

Over the last ten games, with the Hoosiers fighting to earn a NCAA tournament berth, Ferrell’s upped his averages to 18.4 points, 5.1 assists, and has scored double figures in nine of the ten games. In the only game Ferrell scored in single digits, he dished out a career-high 11 assists as the Hoosiers set a school-record for three-pointer made. Ferrell has failed to score double digits just five times this year, but averages a staggering 7.4 assists in those contest, which shows his mindset when he can’t score.

On his back, the Hoosiers currently sit in fifth place in the Big Ten, currently an 8-seed in Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology and the same seed in our latest bracketology.

Sure, D’Angelo Russell and Kaminsky may have rightful cases of their own for Big Ten Player of the Year, but don’t count out Ferrell. He’s already proved us wrong once this year.

Next: Welcome to the Street Fight: Big Ten Most Contentious In All of College Basketball

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