Big Ten Basketball: The historic Player of the Year race

This Big Ten basketball season has been littered with mediocrity, however, the Player of the Year race is epic.

Big Ten basketball sometimes gets a bad rap for playing a boring brand of basketball. Whether or not you agree with this assertion, it’s pretty difficult for me, someone who grew up in Big Ten territory and has a certain fondness for it, to even say that the Big Ten has been entertaining this season.

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Why is that? Well, for starters, Indiana was picked by many to win the league this year. After bursting through the gates to start the season with wins over Kansas and North Carolina, the Hoosiers now sit at just 15-8, they’re tied for sixth in the conference, and their only player that isn’t allergic to defense, OG Anunoby, is out indefinitely with a knee injury. 

The Big Ten has also had Tom Izzo proclaiming “I don’t care about the fan base,” and a large continent of people over on Twitter want Thad Matta gone at Ohio State. I mean, Northwestern, having never appeared in an NCAA Tournament, is one of the top four teams in the conference.

But above all of the middling teams, the Big Ten is a little less confusing at the top, where Purdue and Wisconsin are two of the top three teams. Within those two teams is an even more interesting race: the race for Big Ten Player of the Year.

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With all due respect to Melo Trimble, who has put Maryland and himself back on the map after a disappointing campaign last season, this is a two-man race. Both Caleb Swanigan and Ethan Happ are having historically good seasons.

Swanigan currently averages 20 points and 13 rebounds per game in Big Ten play. He leads the conference in both categories. For the season, he’s averaging 19 points and 12.8 rebounds per game, which is the most rebounds a Big Ten player has ever averaged over the course of an entire season (since 1992). 

Swanigan is a 6’9″ ball of energy, unlike anything college basketball has ever really seen. He has a high level of intelligence, which is great for someone with his tenacity, since it leads to game-saving plays like this tip-out to P.J. Thompson for the game-winning three-pointer in Saturday’s big win over Maryland:

So then what’s the case for Happ? On the surface, unless you’re a proponent of giving these types of awards to the team that wins the conference, Swanigan seems like a runaway for Big Ten Player of the Year.

Well, first of all, Ethan Happ is a much more complete player. It’s rare that a player is such a focal point of a team’s schemes on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. In Big Ten play, he leads the Badgers in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks.

Watching Ethan Happ play basketball in college is probably strikingly similar to what it would look like if Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets played in college. He plays with a certain versatility and maturity that is very rarely seen at the college level.

I have been racking my brain trying to remember a big man ever doing something like this in college basketball:

I can’t come up with anyone. How about a big man that could pass like this?

What Happ is doing is just as unprecedented as the work that Swanigan is doing. In Big Ten play, he’s averaging 16 points, eight rebounds, three assists, 2.7 steals, and 1.3 blocks per game. He leads the Big Ten in steals, and he’s a center!

Since 1992, no player in the conference has averaged that over the course of an entire season. We’ve never seen a player do what Swanigan is doing. We’ve also never seen a player do what Happ is doing.

If I’m being honest, I don’t think there is a right answer here. But there also isn’t a wrong one. Happ’s team has the edge in the standings, as they sit atop the conference, with Swanigan’s Boilermakers in third.

However, Swanigan won the individual battle with a 66-55 win over Wisconsin last month. Happ had 17 points, five rebounds, four assists, and six steals, while Swanigan had 18 points 13 rebounds, and two blocks.

Next: Three takeaways from Purdue's road win over Maryland

Nobody is talking about the Big Ten this year, and perhaps rightfully so. But for the naysayers that refuse to watch even the best that the conference has to offer, they’re missing one heck of a show between two players unlike any others that college basketball has ever seen.