Michigan State Basketball: BTT Log5 and All-B1G Awards

Log5

First off here's the Log5 based on KenPom ratings (h/t to SpartanDan who showed me where I went wrong originally)

MSU is a pretty heavy favorite thanks to being 3rd in KenPom with the next highest team in Indiana at 9th.

All-B1G Awards/Honors

B1G Player of the Year: Denzel Valentine, Michigan State - Simply put, Valentine was the best player in the conference and it wasn't particularly close. Dan Dakich Some people had this notion that Yogi Ferrell should've won it due to Indiana winning the conference by 2 games. However, it takes into account the whole season where Valentine was inarguably a top 2 player this season and is currently #1 for KenPom Player of the Year. In my own (biased) view, Valentine is the National Player of the Year because he could join any team and make that team better in a way that Buddy Heild couldn't. If Hield and Valentine were to switch teams, I have a feeling that Oklahoma with Valentine would be better than MSU with Hield.

Coach of the Year: Tom Crean, Indiana - This one honestly came down to the final day for me with Greg Gard and his Wisconsin team losing on the road to Purdue and Indiana winning at home against Maryland. Winning the conference by two games after looking like a dumpster fire defensively in December was a solid coaching job along with the fact they lost James Blackmon Jr. for the season (which may have helped them defensively). Gard just misses the cut for me and probably would've won it if the results had been different yesterday.

Defensive Player of the Year: AJ Hammons, Purdue - This is somewhat a lifetime achievement award but it's also hard to predict these as Rapheal Davis seemingly came out of nowhere last season (he certainly wasn't on my radar). He blocked 8 shots against MSU and had the second highest block% in the B1G (behind Deyonta Davis) along with 4th in DReb%.

Freshman of the Year: Ethan Happ, Wisconsin - Happ won this over Thomas Bryant and Diamond Stone due to Happ's insane steal percentage (5.6% during conference play) and that he was a bit more irreplaceable to his team in my opinion.

All-B1G First Team

Yogi Ferrell, Indiana

AJ Hammons, Purdue

Nigel Hayes, Wisconsin

Jarrod Uthoff, Iowa

Denzel Valentine, Michigan State

Pretty straightforward, these players were the best players on the best teams.

All-B1G Second Team

Matt Costello, Michigan State

Bryn Forbes, Michigan State

Malcolm Hill, Illinois

Peter Jok, Iowa

Melo Trimble, Maryland

More of the better players on the best teams along with Malcolm Hill who was this year's version of DJ Newbill as a star player on a bad team.

All-B1G Third Team

Vince Edwards, Purdue

Ethan Happ, Wisconsin

Robert Carter, Maryland

Shavon Shields, Nebraska

Diamond Stone, Maryland

There were a lot of tough cuts to make on here. A lot of Indiana guys (Bryant, Bielfeldt, Williams) were all considered. Some others were cut because their efficiency dropped significantly against higher level competition (McIntosh, White). Mark Donnal was really close as well but his efficiency might be a bit inflated due to being a Michigan center who gets a lot of easy looks (87% of his makes at the rim were assisted on). Brandon Taylor as a senior would've been nice to put on there but just not good enough stats for me. Basically if there was a dispute I looked for the usage and efficiency against conference and Tier A opponents as the tiebreaker. The closest one for me was probably having Vince Edwards over Troy Willaims but for me Edwards is such a good glue guy and Williams was helped a lot by playing with Yogi and Indiana's high-octane offense. If you have any questions/comments let me know in the comments below.