Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody and Michigan head coach John Beilein talk about the league’s junior class and the conference’s depth at Big Ten Media Day on Thursday at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel & Conference Center, 5440 North River Road, in Rosemont, Ill.
Rosemont, Ill. — Looking up and down the Big Ten men’s basketball preseason All-Big Ten team, one thing stands out — all five players are juniors.
MSU’s Kalin Lucas, Michigan’s Manny Harris, Ohio State’s Evan Turner, Penn State’s Talor Battle and Purdue’s Robbie Hummel make up the preseason all-conference team and anchor a league-wide group of juniors expected to make a serious impact this season.
“We just have an unbelievable junior class in college basketball,” Purdue head coach Matt Painter said.
“And it’s evident, obviously, in the Big Ten. There’s a lot of juniors in that class that are stars and I think when we have some guys that had opportunities to go in the draft that stayed, I think that really strengthened our league.”
MSU head coach Tom Izzo said having all five juniors return “speaks volumes for what guys want to accomplish.”
“I definitely feel good about it as far as for a league,” Izzo said.
“I feel bad about it as far as a coach because they’ve got to play against four of those other guys.”
And those players did think about going to the NBA. Professionally, the fact they stayed dismayed one coach.
“A couple guys should’ve gone to the NBA,” Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said.
“We should’ve had Harris go, Turner go, I was counting on those guys leaving, but they’re still here. … Guys come in as freshmen and are productive and make a difference, so if they do and they don’t leave early, you have them for four years and that’s not good, unless they’re on your team.”
The key to each of these players’ success is they played right off the bat as freshmen, Michigan head coach John Beilein said. But they’re not alone.
“You go around the league and each team’s going to have their guys in addition to those five guys,” Beilein said.
Lucas, the league’s Preseason Player of the Year, will lead the Spartans after averaging 14.7 points and 4.3 assists per game last season. But it’s Turner, who will move to point guard this season after averaging 17.3 points as a swingman last season, who impresses Lucas.
“He’s a complete player,” Lucas said. “He can dribble, he can shoot, he can post up and he’s tall, too.”
For Hummel, it’s his experience going up against Lucas that has him watching out for the league reigning player of the year.
“I’ve played against Kalin since I was a sophomore in high school and he is a great point guard, a great leader, incredibly fast and just an all-around good basketball player,” Hummel said.
“He’s probably one of the top point guards in the league and he shows it night in and night out.”
But just as they did last season, these five players are going to haunt opposing coaches.
“You get used to it, you get numb to it,” Beilein said. “That’s the way it’s going to be.”
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