From Part I of this brief mini-series:

After a while, I decided to focus on ten of the most intriguing, good, talented, enigmatic, compelling, or otherwise notable players in the Big Ten and write about, well, what I think of them, what I think when I watch them play, and (to a certain extent) what they mean to me and the conference at-large. Basketball can be boiled down to numbers, but it should be an affective experience as well. So here’s that side of things. Don’t read it if you’re blinded by hatred for the enemy; don’t read it if you’re just gonna skim for Michigan players because there aren’t any (though Caris would be on here if he wasn’t hurt and oh, the sadness, it’s back).

The first five players – Branden Dawson, Melo Trimble, Denzel Valentine, D.J. Newbill, and Frank Kaminsky – are in the post linked above. Here are the next five (again, in no particular order):

Nebraska’s Champion

Champion: “a knight who fought in single combat on behalf of the monarch.”

Back in the day (as far as I know), armies lined up across each other from far away, sent out their best fighter, and watched as the two fought in lieu of a full-blown battle. My best versus your best, and the gods will decide who’s better. In that way, I visualize Nebraska’s offensive strategy as an attempt to rekindle that ancient strategy; they send out Terran Petteway holding a sword and a shield, decked out in armor, to battle the opponent.

It’s an old – read: obsolete – basketball strategy too: get this guy the ball, the rest of you just play defense and rebound. Allen Iverson’s 76ers took this to its logical extreme and, with efficiency prized as a valuable stat, it’s hard to believe that giving a guy 20 or more field goal attempts in a game to get maybe 25 points from him is a sound strategy… unless you’re Nebraska!

“Terran, go do something” is the Huskers’ modus operandi offensively (unless Shavon Shields wants in on the action every so often), and, unsurprisingly, Petteway has the highest usage rate in the league this season. He’s put up some gaudy point numbers; he’s put up a ton of shots. A few nights ago, he put up 21 points against Wisconsin on 27.5 shot equivalents. With Nebraska in catch-up mode – due to their stagnant offense early on – and the offense devolved into hoping that Petteway would do something (which, to be fair, sort of worked better than their regular offense did).

It’s a high variance strategy; sometimes he pours in an efficient 32 (like he did against Michigan State), sometimes he puts up 18 shots and only makes five (like he did against Rhode Island). It’s a nightly adventure – is Petteway on or not? To be clear, he gets buckets – if sometimes inefficiently – and he’s a good basketball player on the whole: Petteway does have an eye for distributing the ball; he’s great attacking the rim and getting to the free throw line; he’s a passable outside shooter, especially since a lot of his attempts are of the pull-up variety; and the most underrated part of his game is that, like every other Husker, he’s a very good defender.

Sending Terran Petteway, Champion of Nebraska, Noble Warrior of the Corn  to fight mano a mano with the other team’s champion simply isn’t feasible. The rules of engagement have changed. Still, he gets buckets. For that reason and that reason alone, he’s always compelling – good, bad or neutral. And since he’s going to put up a ton of points one way or another, he’ll be rewarded with a spot on the First- or Second-Team All-Big Ten team.

[after the jump: odes to Hammons, Rod Williams, Yogi, and Russell]

You Play Because You Must

Human beings who are seven feet tall are rare and magical things. They push the bounds of what’s theoretically possible and live as giants among us. Also, by virtue of their size, they are fated to play basketball because basketball is a game where tall men thrive. As future seven-footers grow to impossibly proportioned sizes throughout their adolescence, they’re recruited by basketball coaches – hey, you’re tall, do you want to try playing basketball? Some are felled almost immediately because of their complete lack of coordination (though the coaches will try to be patient with them); some can’t avoid being lumbering stiffs who simply can’t keep up with the other nine on the floor.

The ones who are coordinated, can move fluidly, and possess a fair amount of athleticism – those seven-footers are the ones college coaches drool over. A.J. Hammons is one of those guys. Hammons is blessed with the ability to do things that are simply impossible for other players to do: he has impressive lateral quickness for a man his size; he has soft hands and a deft touch around the basket; and because of his blend of gargantuan size and implausible athleticism, he’s one of the better rim protectors in college basketball. The tools are there. You watch Hammons do some great things so effortlessly on the court – it’s impossible not to think that he’s a legitimate NBA prospect.

But with Hammons, there’s this other thing. Call it laziness, apathy, indifference or – most generously put – inconsistency; in any case, there’s always been something a little bit off about Hammons. He’s an enigma: capable of fleeting brilliance and frustrating ineffectiveness in turn. This year is slightly different, as the presence of fellow seven-footer Isaac Haas eases some of the pressure on Hammons; and to be fair, Hammons has improved a fair amount this season. Still, there’s this nagging question: what’s holding him back mentally? And its logical extension is: can he ever put it together? If not, is it can’t or won’t?

Who knows? At this point, you might as well throw up your hands and just see what plays out. Big men do tend to take a little longer to develop and even if Hammons isn’t ready for the NBA by the time he’s done at Purdue, he could hone his skills and get a crack at the league a few years afterwards. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Hammons is a gifted player whose ceiling is sky-high, and it would be awesome if he could get it together. There’s quite a burden on his shoulders, being a talented seven-footer.

Jumpin’ Out The Gym

As the NBA Dunk Contest the other night reminded us, there’s little more exciting, entertaining, or awe-inspiring than the most flashy and powerful dunks that basketball’s best athletes have to offer. The Big Ten has had some excellent dunkers in recent memory: Michigan’s own Glenn Robinson III, Minnesota’s Rodney Williams, Michigan State’s Branden Dawson, Ohio State’s Sam Thompson, Indiana’s Victor Oladipo – who placed second in the dunk contest on Saturday – and so on. The next in that lineage is Indiana sophomore Troy Williams.

Williams isn’t just a high-flyer with a penchant for emasculating opponents with thunder-dunks: he’s the most active presence on the glass for the diminutive Hoosiers; he thrives in transition and is a disruptive force in passing lanes on the defensive end – though he’s not the shot-blocker that you’d expect, for a guy with his leaping ability. Williams has been playing better in Big Ten play – ratcheting up his defensive rebounding; drawing fouls, getting to the free throw line, etc. Of all the Hoosiers, he has the highest usage rate in conference play.

Still, we watch him for his dunking ability. He takes a full two thirds of his shot attempts at or near the rim, and with his hauteur – with regards to his supernatural hops – he’s aggressive enough to try dunking from anywhere. Williams doesn’t only throw it down all over you – you have no hope of challenging his dunk attempts, just run and hide, lest you appear on a poster – but he stares you down with a look of utter contempt, flexes a little bit, and then runs back on defense. It’s hard to tell if that swagger is borne from his strength and athleticism, or Williams’s confidence manifested itself in his high-flying acrobatics, but regardless: it’s awesome.

Who among us wouldn’t scream and peacock after throwing down those kinds of dunks? Williams embraces them with an utterly genuine enthusiasm, sportsmanship be damned (and sometimes, that particular construct should be). If you don’t enjoy dunking, you shouldn’t be playing basketball. And goodness, Troy Williams loves to dunk.

In a macro sense for Indiana, Williams is a chaos engine of the highest variance. He’s equally capable of dominating a game with his fearlessness and activity around the rim as he is prone to wander aimlessly around the perimeter (where he can’t score), in effect, becoming completely useless. Even his individual plays are bouts of mania – will he fly in from the three-point line to put back a three-pointer gone awry? Will he turn it over in the open court by dribbling the ball off his foot? Will he sky high in the air for a tip-in, before losing his man on a backdoor cut on the other end? That’s the fun. And when it works, it’s terrifying.

Yes, the title of this section is a Migos reference.

The Little Engine

Yes, two Hoosiers in a row. Despite everything – Tom Crean’s generally smug buffoonery, Assembly Hall’s weird ref juju, whatever reasons you want to throw out there for hating Indiana (my favorite is the Zeller-Oladipo team that stole the Big Ten title from Michigan’s glorious 2012-2013 squad) – Indiana’s actually fun. Aside from the aforementioned Troy Williams, the Hoosiers have freshmen James Blackmon Jr. and Robert Johnson – capable of shooting and creating from the wing spots – and a couple of generic white dudes who heave threes pretty well. They play a wide-open aesthetic brand of basketball (with no defense) that offers a stark contrast to the brutish, ugly ball played across the country. And they also have the best point guard in the league, Yogi Ferrell.

Ferrell’s game is awesome. He’s the straw that stirs the drink for Indiana; Blackmon theoretically could be considered a combo guard (so the Hoosiers could potentially work without Yogi), but Ferrell elevates the entire team to another level with his distribution. He’s a true point guard, or as true as point guards can be – he looks to set up his teammates and they all thrive because of it (especially Williams and the White Guys, as well as Stanford Robinson and Hanner Mosquera Perea – so basically half the team). Ferrell was thrust into a leadership role last year as a sophomore because of the exodus of talent following the Zeller-Oladipo year and, predictably, he struggled. Few sophomores can captain a ship full of young players to anything resembling coherence.*

Now, Indiana’s offense is one of the best in the country (and their defense is as proportionally bad, through no fault of Ferrell’s). The Hoosiers have a lethal corps of three-point gunners, led by Ferrell, who’s shooting 44% over the most attempts by anyone on the team. He’s a spot-up shooter above the break, an occasional camper in the corner, and, most impressively of all, a master of the “Chauncey.” ** Every so often, he stares down his defender, takes a couple of almost condescending dribbles, and then splashes a three in their face. Yogi’s a killer.

Now he’s the face of Indiana Basketball and he seems to be actively embracing the role. The Hoosiers have survived HMP’s absence and should be a top-half seed in the NCAA Tournament, a surprising reversal from last year’s fortunes. Though the returning Hoosiers have improved across the board and the two freshman guards have been productive, this is Yogi’s team and he should receive plenty of credit. He’s already developed – advanced understanding of offensive ball movement, turnover aversion, etc. – and he still has another year after this one. 2016 Big Ten Player of the Year frontrunner? I’ll start the movement.

* Reason No. 5,162 why Trey Burke was the best

**Named after Chauncey Billups, the pull-up three in transition, PU3IT, or whatever else you want to call it. For Michiganders in my generation, it’s the Chauncey.

Evanescent

evanescent [ev-uh-nes-uh nt]

adjective

1.  vanishing; fading away; fleeting

D’Angelo Russell is fast-tracked for the NBA. Draftniks have moved him into the top three of most mock drafts, and he’s almost certainly the best backcourt prospect in the entire draft class. In an ideal world, he wouldn’t have to spend a year in college basketball purgatory – he would be able to maximize his earning potential right at 18 without risking injury playing for free in college. That’s not the reality, and it’s to Ohio State’s benefit: they get one year of D’Angelo Russell – something any college program would salivate over.

Russell is a surreal college player. He dutifully fills up the stat-sheet: points, rebounds, assists, steals, whatever, he’ll do it for you – but the beauty of his game shines through with the freelancing brilliance of a precocious (and maybe bored?) prodigy. His signature bounce pass, a bizarre, spinning entry pass is something I’ve never seen before, and his artistry in humiliating defenders with an array of jukes, crossovers, and jabs is unparalleled in college basketball this season. He’s skilled, efficient, and capable on both ends. It’s hard to poke any holes in his game. Announcers laud him with platitudes about leadership and maturity – who really knows with those things but positive vibes now can only bode well for later.

He channels the spirit of Evan Turner, Buckeye – before his NBA career (as a bust) collapsed into missed shots from everywhere. Before that, Turner was a stone-cold killer – for example, the Big Ten Tournament heave in Stu Douglass’s grill – who did everything for Ohio State. He was ultimately felled by an insufficient supporting cast (coincidentally, the problem that D’Angelo Russell is experiencing right now), but he scored, rebounded, and assisted as well as anyone in recent memory. He was Big Ten Player of the Year and National Player of the Year, and his professional failures still make little sense to me.* Russell is the second coming of Turner, hopefully in for a better NBA career.

It’s always an inexact science, but I think Russell will be a great pro. He doesn’t have the type of jaw-dropping athleticism that portends a future star (or so those who follow the draft like to say), but he’s a prototypical shooting guard with point guard abilities. He can do it all. It’s been a joy to watch him over the last few months and, if everything works out the way it should, this will be a slight blip on the radar of D’Angelo Russell’s career.

For now though, let’s enjoy him. Russell should be a first-team All-American and very well could be the best player in the country (though inertia will likely keep Jahlil Okafor and Frank Kaminsky at the top of the Player of the Year race). Let’s just wait for what’s next, whichever jaw-dropping move that may be.

*He’s in for at least $28M, so how much of a failure is he, really?