Iowa and Michigan State Split Week 11 Big Ten Honors

The Big Ten released its weekly award winners for week 11 of the regular season on Monday and two teams ended up splitting the awards. Michigan State’s Cassius Winston was named Big Ten Player of the Week and Iowa’s Joe Wieskamp was named Big Ten Freshman of the Week. In a big week for the league, these two stood out.

Entering this season, Winston was viewed as one of the league’s best players and a key factor for a Michigan State team that many thought projected to be the best group in the league. However, Winston had shown some consistency on the defensive end of the floor and needed to improve at avoiding turnovers. Spartan fans were hoping he could improve in those areas.

And so far, so good. Winston has been fantastic this season and had a huge performance last week. He scored 29 points and had six assists in the team’s road win over Nebraska on Thursday night to push Michigan State to 16-2 overall and 7-0 in league play. This is the third time he’s been named Big Ten Player of the Week during his career.

Wieskamp also had an impressive performance this week. He averaged 17 points and six rebounds in Iowa’s wins over Penn State and Illinois. Additionally, he was perfect from three-point range in the team’s win over the Fighting Illini. This was the first time that Wieskamp has been named Big Ten Freshman of the Week this season.

All told, it was a big week for the Big Ten and these two teams. It will be exciting to watch Winston and Wieskamp as the season continues to unfold.