Click here for Part One. The midseason-ish awards thus far:

Player of the Year: Luka Garza, Iowa
Coach of the Year: Juwan Howard, Michigan
Newcomer of the Year: Hunter Dickinson, Michigan
Defensive Player of the Year: Franz Wagner, Michigan
Sixth Man of the Year: Justin Ahrens, Ohio State
Most Improved Player: Pete Nance, Northwestern

The most-contested choice in the comments was my late switch from Chaundee Brown to Justin Ahrens for best sixth man, so evidently I'm not a homer. (The comments section, also homers? Never.)

All-Conference Teams

close to cracking the first team [Campredon]

Before I hand out more awards, here's my stab at midseason all-conference teams. For position designations, a player had to get at least some of their minutes playing the spot listed. This mostly applies to Ohio State C/F EJ Liddell, who plays a little bit of power forward while being able to stretch the floor and therefore ends up on my first team, while poor dang Trevion Williams has been phenomenal this season but doesn't even make third team because he exclusively plays center for Purdue.

Pos.	First Team	Second Team	Third Team
PG	D'Mitrik Trice, UW	Jordan Bohannon, IA	Marcus Carr, MN
G	Ayo Dosunmu, IL	Myreon Jones, PSU	Eli Brooks, U-M
W	Franz Wagner, U-M	Isaiah Livers, U-M	Joe Wieskamp, IA
F	EJ Liddell, OSU	Donta Scott, MD	Ron Harper Jr., RU
C	Luka Garza, IA	Trayce Jackson-Davis, IU	Kofi Cockburn, IL

The toughest choices:

• TJD, Cockburn, Williams, and Hunter Dickinson vying for two spots at center
• Bohannon (lower output, amazing efficiency, secondary role, better team) against Carr (higher output, worse efficiency, lead role, worse team)
• Wagner or Livers for first-team wing, Michigan might be good
• Wieskamp over a number of viable candidates for the last spot on the wing

The easiest picks were Garza, Trice, and Dosunmu.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the midseason awards.]

Midseason-ish Awards: The Unusual Categories

prelude to a clank [Campredon]

BEST SURPRISE: EJ LIDDELL

For the player who's most exceeded preseason expectations, which isn't quite the same thing as most improved player.

We barely mentioned Liddell in our season preview roundtable, and while I had a chance to look smart when I finally brought him up, I blew it by only bringing him up in the context of being undersized for his position. The 6'7" post player has improved in nearly every meaningful statistical category despite getting most of his minutes at center instead of his more natural fit at power forward.

Instead of Liddell being a reason OSU is held back, he's the best player on what's once again one of the country's more surprisingly successful teams. He can function as the only interior presence in a five-out attack or play next to Kyle Young, who's often planted in the dunker spot waiting for dumpoffs and offensive rebounds.

Liddell is averaging nearly 15 points and 7 boards per Big Ten game with efficient interior scoring, just enough of a three-point threat to stretch defenses, excellent defensive rebounding, and even solid shot-blocking.

Other contenders: Jordan Bohannon, Jacob Young

WORST SURPRISE: NATE REUVERS

The last category, but bad.

In the same roundtable, we collectively picked Wisconsin as our favorite to win the league. A big reason for that was their ability to play a good-to-excellent Big Ten stretch five at all times and potentially overwhelm certain opponents by playing Micah Potter and Nate Reuvers together.

Ace: If I had to choose a favorite to win the conference, it’s probably this team. Gard has proven to be legit, they’re pretty much the same team as last year, and Potter will be fully incorporated from the start.

Seth: I want to move on not think about Wisconsin winning the COVID season.

Brian: They return everyone except Just A Shooter Brevin Pritzl. (And Kobe King, but they took off after he left last year.) Their offense can tolerate the fact no one can get to the bucket if they have killer stretch fives and ope they do.

Instead, the two-bigs lineup has barely been playable, and Greg Gard finally ditched it as his (mostly ceremonial) starting lineup after Michigan blew out the Badgers. Potter and Gard haven't seen eye-to-eye in part, it seems, because of the former's frustration with ceding minutes to a less effective player. Reuvers' has finally gone down because his shooting hasn't come around this season. Here's his season-long shot chart with the first three cupcake games removed (doesn't include last night, when he went 1/2 on twos and hit his only three):

Not great. While Reuvers has never been a great finisher, it's been worse than any point since his freshman year, and he's shooting 2-for-18 on three-pointers in conference play. Wisconsin's all-time blocks leader isn't protecting the rim nearly as well, either, and he's always been a below-average defensive rebounder. His two-way drop-off has played a big role in the Badgers losing three of their last seven games.

Other contenders: Rocket Watts, Gabe Kalscheur, Giorgi Bezhanishvili

PLEASE HELP THIS MAN: TREVION WILLIAMS

For the best player getting the least amount of help from his teammates.

Purdue's starting center averages 16.6 points in Big Ten games; the #2 Boilermaker, Sasha Stefanovic, scores 9.7, and he's out the next couple games after testing positive for COVID-19. Williams pulls down 9.4 rebounds, more than double the figure of the closest teammate: backup center Zach Edey, who doesn't play alongside Williams. He even dishes out 2.2 assists, second only to the team's starting point guard, Eric Hunter Jr., who's averaging all of 2.9 with a significantly higher turnover rate.

Williams has the highest usage (36.6%) and shot (37.2%) rates in the league and still ranks in the top 25 in eFG%. He has a 107.0 O-Rating in Big Ten games; Purdue's conference offensive efficiency is 99.9 even when including Williams' contributions.

More statistical geekery: Evan Miya's Bayesian Performance Rating takes into account both an individual player's statistical value and that of his teammates when he's on the court to provide a measure of a player's true overall value when on the court. This can also be divided into offensive and defensive BPR. There are 116 Big Ten players who've logged at least 150 total possessions this season. Here's how Purdue's ten qualifying players stack up by BPR:

Williams, by this measure, is the sixth-best player in the conference. He has one (1) above-average teammate in Stefanovic. Everyone else is somewhere between almost precisely average (Wheeler, Hunter) and overmatched (Morton, Ivey, Edey). Michigan fans saw what Purdue looks like when Stefanovic isn't available; it's not pretty, and it's a lot of Williams fighting through multiple defenders for contested shots because an average look for him is better than a good shot from a teammate.

Other contenders: Teddy Allen, Marcus Carr, Aaron Henry

THE JAREN JACKSON JR. AWARD: MICAH POTTER

Given to the most underutilized high-level player.

This won't require too much explanation since I've discussed the Reuvers situation already. While the minutes distribution has moved slightly in favor of Potter over the last couple weeks, they've played almost the exact same number of possessions against real competition. Potter is averaging 11.9 points and 6.9 rebounds in Big Ten games; Reuvers is at 7.6 and 3.7.

Potter has the talent to be one of the most productive centers in a league stacked at the position. He's holding himself back some by making mistakes and perhaps not having the most coach-friendly demeanor, but at this point it feels like Gard is holding the team back more by not letting him play through the occasional mistake.

MOST EXTREME JUST A SHOOTER™: JUSTIN AHRENS

The player with the biggest disparity between three-point and two-point attempts.

It's not close. Ahrens has attempted 46 threes in Big Ten games while shooting only twice inside the arc. As a bonus, he's only attempted five free throws.

There are three notable contenders: Iowa's Jordan Bohannon (58 3PA, 11 2PA), Illinois' Adam Miller (55 3PA, 12 2PA), and PSU's Myles Dread (24 3PA, 3 2PA), though Bohannon isn't a true JAS™ because he actually runs the point. Ahrens, meanwhile, has one assist in conference play.

rarely seen in the wild [Campredon]

THE INVISIBLE MAN: THORIR THORBJARNARSON

The rotation player who makes the least discernible offensive impact by both usage and effectiveness.

ThorThor lost his starting job when Big Ten season began but has still seen the court for half of Nebraska's available minutes. He uses only 9.6% of the team's possessions, the second-lowest in the conference among those to play at least 30% of available minutes. He's 3-for-13 from the field in five B1G games, tallying a total of nine points, one offensive rebound, four assists, and four turnovers. He's present, in a technical sense, and soaking up minutes for the worst team in the conference. This is an impressive way to get your overseas education covered by the school's dime.

Other contenders: Trevor Anderson, Da'Monte Williams, Aaron Wheeler

DISASTER FACTORY (INDIVIDUAL): BOTH GACH

An "award" usually given to the wildest ineffective high-usage player, though style points on both ends of the floor are taken into account. Brian likes to use statistical parameters; I prefer to lean more on feelingsball.

Minnesota's Both Gach, a transfer from Utah, boasts impressive athletic ability in an NBA wing's frame and the capability of making difficult shots. This emboldens him to take more difficult shots, unfortunately, and capability is quite different from efficiency. After averaging 14.7 points in 7 non-conference games, he's hit a wall in the Big Ten, shooting 10-for-29 on twos and 6-for-28 from downtown to drag his scoring average down nine points to 5.7 per game.

While he doesn't dominate the ball, he has the flair of a lead playmaker, only the plays often end quite poorly. He'll pull up for airballs, hoist early-clock shots under duress, and reliably commit one ugly turnover per game at minimum. He's also good for a couple defensive lapses. Dan Dakich openly questioned his effort during a broadcast earlier this year and got upset when his teammates on the bench encouraged him instead of ripping into him, and while I usually disagree with such takes, the commentary felt warranted.

Gach hasn't played nearly as well since the competition stepped up, yet he hasn't altered his approach. For our purposes, that's ideal.

Other contenders: Rocket Watts, Chase Audige, Jaden Ivey

DISASTER FACTORY (TEAM): MINNESOTA

To the team most committed to playing Disaster Factories.

Richard Pitino's squad has a flair for the hilarious and it goes far beyond Gach. Freshman guard Jamal Mashburn Jr. hasn't met a jumper he hasn't liked, attempts more shots the tougher the competition gets, and get less accurate against those more difficult foes. He's 11-for-29 on twos and 5-for-24 on threes in Big Ten games; his 13 assists are almost canceled out by 11 turnovers.

Backup big man Isaiah Ihnen has too low usage to contend individually but certainly adds to the whole; he's made only 5 of 25 shots, including a 1-for-18 mark from downtown, in conference games. Gabe Kalscheur's shot looks pretty but almost never goes in. Multiple other contributors are in the 30% or below range and still firing up threes.

The Gophers take the third-highest proportion of three-pointers among Big Ten squads. They're dead last in the conference at making them, shooting 28.6% as a team.

DISASTER FACTORY (PLAY): TYLER WAHL

Self-explanatory.

What was that? Art. That's what it was.

DUNK OF THE YEAR: THUNDER ELI BROOKS

Okay I'm definitely biased for this one but it's my favorite dunk of the year and second place is his dunk from the Northwestern game.