We continue our preseason superlatives this week with the introduction of our Preseason All-Big Ten Second Team. To review our Preseason All Big Ten Third Team, check out Eric Clark’s post from Wednesday. It’s important to point out with this group that, while we stuck to five players, we weren’t completely married to a true team concept and ended up with two point guards on this team. Instead, you should interpret this as the next best five players after our Preseason All-Big Ten First Team, which will release on Friday.
RTC All-Big Ten Second Team
- Yogi Ferrell, Junior, Indiana, 6’0”, 178 lbs. (17.3 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 3.9 APG). Ferrell made a huge leap last season by adding almost 10 points to his per game average in becoming the primary scoring option for Indiana. This year, the junior point guard will have some additional scoring help with freshman Justin Blackmon Jr. joining the Hoosiers. This should relieve some of the pressure to score from Ferrell and allow him to concentrate on running the offense and improving on his mediocre 1.5 assist-to-turnover ratio.
- D.J. Newbill, Senior, Penn State, 6’4”, 210 lbs. (17.8 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 1.7 APG). Last season, Newbill was the primary scorer and Tim Frazier played the role of distributor. Now that Frazier has graduated, it will be solely on Newbill to run the Penn State offense. Because of the transition in his role, his scoring may drop as he tries to involve teammates like John Johnson and Jordan Dickerson in the offense. Still, Newbill will be the one with the ball in his hands during crunch time — as he goes, so will the Nittany Lions.
- Andre Hollins, Senior, Minnesota, 6’2”, 195 lbs. (13.6 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 2.4 APG). Hollins went through a lot last season — he had to learn a new system under a new head coach; he was hampered by a persistent ankle injury; and he had to learn how to play off the ball when DeAndre Mathieu took over the team’s point guard duties. As a result, Hollins regressed in scoring (14.3 to 13.6 PPG) and three-point shooting (41.8% t0 34.9%) but the Memphis native should be more effective now that he has a year of experience in Richard Pitino’s offense.
- Aaron White, Senior, Iowa, 6’9”, 228 lbs. (12.8 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 1.8 APG). If it wasn’t for Frank Kaminsky, we may be describing White as the best offensive big man in the conference. The senior forward led the Big Ten in true shooting percentage and was third in offensive rating last season. Aside from being incredibly efficient, he is also an underrated athlete. With Roy Devyn Marble now graduated, he’ll be the center of the Hawkeyes’ offense and will play the role of senior leader. The one knock is that he’ll need to improve his defense if he’s going vie for a spot on the First Team.
- A.J. Hammons, Junior, Purdue, 7’0”, 260 lbs. (10.8 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 3.1 BPG). It seems like we’ve been waiting for Hammons to come into his own for a while now. To be fair, he’s already proven pretty effective for a team that is not exactly overflowing with talent. He’s averaged double-figure scoring in his first two seasons and was the premier rim-protector in the conference last season (averaging a full block per game more than the next player). But the Boilermakers are looking for Hammons to take ownership of the team and he’ll need to contribute more than his usual 25.0 MPG to do that. If Purdue is to return to relevance in the Big Ten, Hammons — our Preseason Defensive Player of the Year — has to lead the way.