With the season now a little over a month old, it’s time to take a look at how different players are performing in accordance with their preseason expectations. I’m always more of a good news first kind of guy, so I’ll start with the guys who are making a better-than-expected impact first, with the disappointments coming next week. Many of these players are transfers, although some are simply just producing more in additional minutes. The common thread with all seven of these Big Ten breakout players is that they are heavily contributing to wins in more than one way, and doing so at a high level.

Frank Kaminsky has played his way into B1G Player of the Year consideration (Getty)

• Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin (14.7 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 2.1 BPG, 1.1 SPG, 42.9% 3FG, 55.4% FG). “Frank the Tank” is leading the Badgers in scoring, steals and blocks. People thought that he’d be able to have an impact with more minutes due to the graduation of Jared Berggren, but no one thought he’d be capable of dropping 43 points in a single game. Kaminsky leads a balanced attack on the offensive end that has five different players capable of scoring 20 on a given night, and he’s a defensive presence to the tune of blocking 7.06 percent of all opponents’ field goal attempts. Wisconsin in general has been a surprise, but Kaminsky has been an even bigger one.
• Eliott Eliason, Minnesota (5.7 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 2.5 BPG). Eliason got lost in the shuffle last season with Trevor Mkakwe and Rodney Williams getting most of the frontcourt minutes in 2012-13. This year he has emerged as a major rebounding and shot-blocking threat for the Gophers. Eliason is currently third in the league in defensive rebounding rate (26.5%), sixth in offensive rebounding rate (12.6%), and third in block rate (11.74%). On a team that frequently features a three-guard attack, it is vital that someone can clear the glass and protect the rim, which Eliason is doing at an elite level in the early going.

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We are a little over one-fourth of the way through the season. Non-conference play lasts about another three weeks, and before you know it, New Year’s Eve will arrive and conference games will be here. The Big Ten Player of the Year award is of course won and lost during conference play, but let’s take a very early look at five players who have positioned themselves to possibly be among the favorites for the award (in alphabetical order).

Wisconsin big man Frank Kaminsky is one of many early candidates in the mix for Big Ten POY. (Reuters)

• Keith Appling, Michigan State: Appling has two teammates in Gary Harris (now injured) and Adreian Payne who are also deserving of this award, but it has been the point guard who has done a little bit of everything for the Spartans this year. His impressive stat line of 16.9 PPG, 5.6 APG, 3.0 RPG and 52 percent from deep are conference POY numbers. Perhaps his most impressive performance was against then #1 Kentucky, exploding for 22 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in a consummate performance. If Appling continues to put up big games like that, he might be on track to become the second Spartans’ senior to win Big Ten POY in the last three years (Draymond Green was the other).
• Tim Frazier, Penn State: It is extremely hard for a player on a team with a losing record to take home the conference POY award, but Frazier could possibly accomplish that this season. He is only averaging 19.4 PPG, but expect that number to rise into the 20s by the time conference play is in full swing. The fifth-year senior is also averaging a league high 7.0 APG and that stat may be underrated too because Frazier will need to get his teammates active on the offensive end of the floor to open up more space for him to work with.

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With two quality victories in the bank already against St. John’s and Florida, Wisconsin will look to put another significant win on their resume Tuesday night in Cancun against a 5-0 St. Louis team. While the Billikens are not ranked in the Top 25 yet, they are the defending Atlantic 10 Tournament champions and a team with good experience at a number of key positions. This game could have been projected as a rock fight of the 45-43 variety in years past, but what makes this one particularly interesting is that Wisconsin is averaging 80.2 PPG despite not really playing terribly fast (67.3 possessions per game, 258th nationally). The Badgers are making things happen by simply shooting the lights out in the early going, notching a 45.2 percent output from three, and a 57.9% eFG. St. Louis is stingy in giving up the three-ball, however, and this highlights what will be one of the more intriguing Feast Week match-ups in the B1G.

Frank Kaminsky looks to stay hot against a quality St. Louis team. (Getty)

Wisconsin has been lights-out shooting the ball this season, but St. Louis has just as impressive numbers defensively. The Billikens are holding opponents to a minuscule 20.3 percent from behind the arc, and they also check in with a 41.8% defensive eFG. Both statistics rank in the top 20 nationally. For the most part, they play a hard-nosed man-to-man with athletic guards that will challenge the shooters and not give allow many open looks. Mike McCall Jr. and Jordair Jett fly around the perimeter making things difficult, and then collectively, the Billikens don’t give out too many second chances after a miss. SLU ranks 44th in the country (26.7%) in letting teams retrieve their misses. To summarize, St. Louis is good at forcing teams into tough threes, then grabbing the defensive rebounds off those misses that often lead to great looks from kickouts. Wisconsin only gets 28.6 percent of their offensive rebounds as it is, so chances are they won’t get many second chance opportunities Tuesday night.

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1. Minnesota, under the leadership of first-year head coach Richard Pitino, has had a hot start to the season. They have won their first five games which includes an impressive road game at Richmond. As nice as their start has been, the Gophers ran into reality when they lost 75-67 to #8 ranked Syracuse in their first-round game at the Maui Invitational. As we mentioned in yesterday’s M5, the term “good loss” gets thrown around a lot, but if there is such a thing, then this game might classify as such for Pitino’s squad. The Gophers were competitive throughout the contest and only down a basket with less than three minutes to go to a top-ten team on national television in one of the premier non-conference tournaments. If they can beat Arkansas today and win the next game, they’ll leave the Maui 2-1;  a successful tournament for Minnesota by any measure.
2. We have had some big performances from some notable Big Ten players this season thus far – players like Gary Harris, Andre Hollins, Nik Stauskas, etc. So when Frank Kaminksy was named Big Ten Player of the Week yesterday, it stuck out since most haven’t heard of the junior big man from Wisconsin before his offensive outburst last week. Kaminsky is, at best, the fourth best scoring option for the Badgers – behind Sam Dekker, John Gasser, and Ben Brust. Bo Ryan was merely hoping Kaminsky would be able to improve his rebounding enough to make up for the loss Jared Berggren. But Kaminsky averaged 26 points and 4.7 rebounds last week, which includes a 43-point showing against North Dakota. If you can believe it, Wisconsin is averaging over 80 PPG. There’s no doubt that having four players who can possibly fill it up is a major reason for their new high-powered offense.
3. The rubber is about to meet the road for Iowa. Since the preseason, they have had a lot of hype because of all their returning players. Thus far, they have lived up to the hype behind a high-powered offense and for their troubles, they were ranked in the AP poll (#25) this week, the first time since 2006. But all of their wins have come against inferior mid-major opponents. Yesterday, they flew to down to the Bahamas where they will participate in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. Fran McCaffery says they are treating this like a business trip. They will need to be all business when they meet undefeated Xavier on Thursday. The Musketeers will be Iowa’s first real test against a high-major team with an NBA-level stud in Semaj Christon. Last year, Iowa was punished by the NCAA selection committee for not having a challenging non-conference schedule. With other teams like Kansas, Tennessee, and Villanova also in the Battle 4 Atlantis, that will not be the case this year.
4. Purdue is desperately trying to avoid missing consecutive NCAA tournaments since 2004-2006. They are not off to the steadiest of starts despite their undefeated record. One facet of their game where the Boilermakers are steady is leadership. Senior guard Terone Johnson is the leader of this team and is setting the right tone for Purdue. He just recently scored 1,000 career points which makes him the 47th player to do so in the school’s history. But Johnson has never measured success in personal accomplishments. He wants the Boilermakers to challenge for the Big Ten title in his final season. While most don’t see this as a realistic goal, in order to at least make the tournament, Johnson is going to need to exercise some of his leadership on his younger teammates. Specifically, he will need to motivate sophomore big man A.J. Hammons to exert full effort throughout the game and avoid foul trouble if they are to return to being Big Ten contenders.
5. Just three years ago, Jereme Richmond was being billed as the key component to returning Illinois back to Big Ten contenders. He had just finished a prolific high school career and was about to take Champaign by storm before heading to the NBA. Now, Richmond is about to spend significant time in jail. Yesterday, he was sentenced to three years for threatening his parole officer. His downward spiral has been as fast as it has been sad. Richmond does not come from a typical broken home. He has two parents who have, at least stated publicly, wanted to keep a level head on him in the face of his recruitment by universities since before he started high school. The only takeaway from this sad story may be that no matter how talented someone may be, it can all come apart with a handful of bad decisions.

Is there anyone out there who still thinks Marcus Smart made a poor decision in returning to Oklahoma State for his sophomore season? Smart is the star player on a team capable of making the Final Four and showed last night that he’s taking his commitment to improve all aspects of his game seriously. Remember, Smart was just a 40 percent shooter overall last season and an anemic 29 percent from three-point land. His talent is obvious but fine-tuning those skills are imperative if he wants to be successful at the next level of basketball. Consider last night’s 39-point performance against an overwhelmed Memphis squad a terrific start. Smart and his Cowboys blitzed the Tigers from the opening tip while the OSU guard enjoyed perhaps the hottest 10-minute stretch of basketball I have ever seen. Smart still has to prove he can hit jumpers with regularity and work on making better decisions, but he made significant progress last night, despite some ill-advised, quick shots and a couple of poor passes. Don’t forget about him: College basketball is not just all about Wiggins, Parker and Randle.

Marcus Smart was terrific against Memphis last night. (AP Photo).

It was interesting to note that John Beilein benched freshman point guard Derrick Walton Jr. down the stretch of Michigan’s 77-70 loss at Iowa State on Sunday. Instead, Beilein went with sophomore Spike Albrecht at the point as the Cyclones managed to pull away and pick up a big win. Beilein is a highly-regarded coach but this was a questionable decision. In a November game in a tough environment, I’d prefer to see the freshman in there to get that experience, good or bad. Nobody is going to be Trey Burke so what’s the harm of seeing what your young point man can do in a pressure spot? Yes, Albrecht is still young too but Walton Jr. seems like the point guard of the future for the Wolverines. I don’t think this decision cost Michigan the game but it was something I noticed immediately. Beilein should have let it ride with his promising freshman in that situation.

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1. Tom Crean channeled his inner Gene Hackman when asked about his team’s upcoming trip to Madison Square Garden for the finals of the 2K Sports Classic. Crean said, “It’s still a 90- foot court with 10 feet from the floor to the rim ,” when he was asked about how it would be different for his young team to go on the road for the first time. While Indiana is a bit more athletic and not nearly as much of an underdog as the fictional Hickory High from the movie “Hoosiers,” they will be tested by their games against Washington in the opener, and against Boston College or Connecticut in the second round. Keep an eye on the point guard match-up in the first game, as Yogi Ferrell squares off against freshman Nigel Williams-Goss.
2. Those that expect Mitch McGary to live up to all of the preseason hype he received might have to curb their enthusiasm for at least a week or two. John Beilein said on Tuesday that he is going to stick to playing McGary around 18-22 minutes a game for the upcoming tournament in Puerto Rico. McGary alternated between being a dominant presence and someone who needs to play himself back into shape in Michigan’s loss on Sunday to Iowa State. Look for more of the same as he builds toward a potentially dominant season once B1G play starts in January.
3. All is not well in East Lansing despite Michigan State being the newly-minted number one team in the country when the latest polls came out on Monday. Tom Izzo is upset about the lackluster crowds at the Breslin Center for both Friday and Monday night’s games. November games against teams like Columbia and Portland aren’t necessarily going to move the needle too much in terms of getting a packed house, and it’s safe to assume this will be a non-issue once they play someone like North Carolina in two weeks. With Michigan State’s football team likely heading to the B1G Championship game, and with the number one team in basketball, Michigan State essentially doesn’t have much to complain about athletically right now.
4. Purdue struggled for the second time in three games against Rider on Sunday. A big reason was the fact that A.J Hammons was saddled with foul trouble, which caused him to miss the majority of the first half. This came after Hammons registered seven blocks in his first game back from suspension against Central Connecticut. A big reason he got into foul trouble was because he had to help his guards who were getting beat of the dribble and getting into the paint too easily. Regardless, this can’t be the start to the reason Hammons was hoping for as he looks to live up to the hype of being a potential lottery pick in the future.
5. Finally, if you had money on Frank Kaminsky being the talk of all of college basketball for something other than maybe getting viciously dunked on by somebody, then you’re are a rich man/woman. Kaminsky set a Wisconsin single-game record last night scoring 43 points in the Badgers’ 103-85 victory over North Dakota. Kaminsky followed up his 16 point-8 rebound game on Saturday against Green Bay with this record-breaking output. Lost in the shuffle a little bit is the fact that Wisconsin also scored the most points as a team since 1995. Bo Ryan probably wasn’t thrilled giving up 83, but he has to be thrilled his squad has started off 4-0 with two great resume wins against St. John’s and Florida.

It’s not often that fast and Wisconsin basketball are used in the same sentence. Since Bo Ryan has been the head coach in Madison, the Badgers have been known for playing big men who execute a deliberate style on the offensive end coupled with strong, take-no-prisoners halfcourt defense. During the past five seasons, Wisconsin’s scoring average hasn’t landed in the top half of the Big Ten, and last season it sat at eighth after averaging 66.2 points a game. The Badgers have also ranked in the bottom 25 Division I teams for possessions per game during four of the past five seasons. Well, get ready for a new look Wisconsin squad. With the graduation of several interior players and the return of Josh Gasser from an ACL injury, the Badgers are likely to use three- and perhaps even four-guard lineups a lot more this season.

Ben Brust is one of many guards that Wisconsin will utilize this season.(Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters).

Exactly how often Wisconsin may use a perimeter-heavy lineup isn’t certain, but based on its current roster, the Badgers will be doing it early and often. With the graduations of Jared Berggren, Ryan Evans and Mike Bruesewitz, the majority of the team’s inside presence is gone outside of Sam Dekker. Those three averaged a total of more than 26 points and 19 rebounds a game for the team, with the best returning inside player other than Dekker being Frank Kaminsky, who only averaged 10 minutes per game last season. This makes interior play a huge question mark for this team, but Ryan certainly has plenty of known commodities on the perimeter. As he said at Wisconsin’s media day, “You think 12 guards is a lot?. It just panned out this way. It keeps a very high competitive level in the backcourt and all our drills and all our possessions.”

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Wisconsin does not function like most of the other perennial Top 25 teams. In this age of one-and-done factories, they actually have players that wait their turns as freshmen and sophomores before taking on bigger and more meaningful roles as upperclassmen. The latest player in this Madison assembly line is junior Frank Kaminsky. Kaminsky is the next in a long line of pick-and-pop big men to take on a larger expected role now that he’s a junior. With the graduations of senior Badgers’ Ryan Evans, Mike Bruesewitz and Jared Berggren, Kaminsky is the only post player on the roster who has any kind of experience, and his development will be a key factor in whether Bo Ryan’s team drops from its usual 20-plus win season. With an experienced backcourt and a rising star in sophomore Sam Dekker, how much production Wisconsin gets from Kaminsky will be the difference between having simply a good or a great season.

Frank Kaminsky will play a large part in how successful Wisconsin’s season is this season. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

In his first two seasons, Kaminsky has shown flashes of being able to handle an expanded role. He has no problem being aggressive on the offensive end, as he has used 21.3 percent of Wisconsin possessions when he is on the floor. He also has shown no issue taking threes despite his 6’11” stature, shooting 80 triples out of a total of 154 field goal attempts in his his two-year career. His eFG% of 51.0 percent could be better, but it sits right at about the level of another very productive former Wisconsin big man, Keaton Nankivil, who also waited his turn. In looking at the numbers of the last two big men in Ryan’s swing offense, it’s a safe assumption that Kaminsky is due for a statistical jump across the board. Nankivil went from averaging 14 minutes, 4.5 points, 2.5 rebounds per game, and nine made threes, to 25 minutes, 8.1 points, 4.7 rebounds per game, and 24 threes as a junior. Berggren had an even greater statistical spike between his sophomore and junior years, going from 6.9 minutes, 2.4 points, 1.1 rebounds per game, and 22 threes, to 27.8 minutes, 10.5 points, 4.9 rebounds per game, and 45 made threes. It’s safe to assume that Kaminsky is next in line to make the jump.

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With the season rapidly approaching, the dreaded injury bug is something that coaches lose sleep over. Not only can an injury hurt a team’s chances of winning, but it also throws off rotations and can possibly lead to chemistry issues.

• Big Ten teams have been fortunate enough to not have any serious injuries so far. Michigan State’s Gary Harris gave the country a scare when he hurt his ankle back in early September, and he was already recovering from a shoulder injury that nagged him for all of last season. He now looks to be fully recovered from the ankle injury as he poured in 15 points in an exhibition matchup on Tuesday. Harris is the only player on the Spartans’ roster who can create his own shot, so losing him for any time period would be a blow to Michigan State’s Big Ten conference title hopes.
• The Spartans’ in-state rival Michigan also has one of its key players dealing with an injury. Back pains and big men never go well together, and in Mitch McGary’s situation, that is exactly the case. John Beilein recently gave an update on McGary’s health, and there is not definite timetable for McGary’s return to the court. The Wolverines have very little frontcourt depth behind him so this could spell trouble if he’s not 100 percent to start the year. Still, Beilein has to be careful to not rush his sophomore star back, as a nagging back problem all year would really hurt Michigan’s chances to get back to the Final Four. Michigan’s first real test is at Iowa State November 17 and then a major showdown with Duke a few weeks later. He should be ready to go for those contests, but Michigan has to be cautious with him (and his back).

Bringing back two key cogs like McGary and Robinson III gives Michigan enough firepower for a run at a Big Ten championship in 2013-14

• Wisconsin starting forward Frank Kaminsky recently was cleared to return to practice after injuring his left foot earlier in the month. The Badgers can ill afford to lose him for an extended period of time, as they are one of the weakest teams in the league when it comes to frontcourt depth. Bo Ryan figures to trot out a three-guard lineup this season with Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and freshman Nigel Hayes seeing time. Kaminsky did a solid job backing up Jared Berggren last year, but this year he inherits the bulk of the minutes. Ryan will lean on “Frank the Tank” to try to slow down some of the Big Ten’s elite big men when the Badgers are on defense.

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Walker Carey is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from the Big Ten Tournament at the United Center following Friday’s matchup between Wisconsin and Michigan. You can follow him at @walkerRcarey.

There was no shortage of heroes in Wisconsin’s 68-59 victory over Michigan in Friday’s Big Ten quarterfinal. No hero was probably as unlikely as Badgers forward Frank Kaminsky. After playing just four minutes and recording no other statistics in the first half, Kaminsky found himself with an increased role in the second half. In 12 minutes of playing time in the second half, the sophomore scored eight important points, grabbed two rebounds, and made a key block.

The Badgers Continue to Not Surprise Anyone While Surprising Everyone (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

While it may not seem like Kaminsky’s game was that impressive, all three of his field goals came at opportune times for the Badgers. Kaminsky’s first converted field goal was a three-pointer at the 15:09 mark of the second half that gave Wisconsin a 29-24 lead. This three-pointer was significant because it helped the Badgers increase a lead that it would never relinquish and it forced Michigan to respect Kaminsky’s ability to step outside and hit an open jumper. Kaminsky’s second score did not come until the 2:26 mark when the Wolverines had trimmed Wisconsin’s lead to just two. With the shot clock about to expire, Kaminsky rose up from mid-range and knocked back a jumper that would increased the Badgers’ lead to four. Kaminsky’s final field goal could have been considered Michigan’s “dagger.” With his team clinging to a five-point lead with 56 seconds to play, Kaminsky converted a scooping floater from in-close to increase Wisconsin’s lead to seven and make it a three possession game.

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