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During the conference season, many fans focus on the Big Ten title race, but one of the interesting storylines over the course of the year is the race for the Big Ten season awards. These include both player and coaching awards and often are a spot of debate at the end of the season.
To gain a little more understanding on the awards race, we reached out to the BTPowerhouse staff and various Big Ten writers at SBNation to case their votes for the Big Ten season awards. Votes were cast during the last week of January to represent Big Ten play up to that point. As such, the most recent games are not included.
Here are the results.
BTP's B1G Midseason Awards
Big Ten Coach of the Year
- Mark Turgeon, Maryland
Big Ten Player of the Year
- Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin
All-Big Ten Team
- Yogi Ferrell, Indiana
- Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin
- DJ Newbill, Penn State
- D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State
- Melo Trimble, Maryland
All-Big Ten Defensive Team
- Branden Dawson, Michigan State
- Nnanna Egwu, Illinois
- AJ Hammons, Purdue
- Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin
- Nate Mason, Minnesota
Big Ten Freshman of the Year
- D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State
All-Big Ten Freshmen Team
- James Blackmon, Jr., Indiana
- Vincent Edwards, Purdue
- Bryant McIntosh, Northwestern
- D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State*
- Melo Trimble, Maryland*
* - denotes unanimous selection
Thoughts
Not a ton of surprises in the selections from the BTPowerhouse staff and other SBNation Big Ten writers, but there are a few notable things. First, the fact that Frank Kaminsky was not a unanimous selection to the All-Big Ten team is pretty amazing. Kaminsky's play has been nothing short of outstanding this season and to think that some don't believe he deserves an All-Big Ten spot is pretty incredible.
The All-Freshmen Team also had some interesting voting. The voting wasn't interesting based on the selections, but the fact that so many freshmen received votes. In total, 15 different Big Ten players received at least one vote including some interesting picks like Michigan's Kameron Chatman, who might be a stretch for this consideration based on his inconsistent contributions this year. Still, it's hard to argue with any of the five selections.
Things will obviously change before these awards are actually handed out at the end of this season, but it is interesting to get a feel and it does appear some separation is starting to occur.