Ethan Happ earns Big Ten Player of the Week honors once again

Ethan Happ is off to a blistering start to the season.

On Monday, Wisconsin’s big man claimed Big Ten Player of the Week honors for the second straight week. Happ averaged 22.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists in the Badgers’ two wins over Xavier and Houston Baptist last week. In the opening week of the season, he racked up a triple-double in the season opener against Coppin State to propel him to the initial honor.

After his 30-point performance on the road against Xavier, Happ was able to return to the Kohl Center and set the all-time career rebounds record for Wisconsin basketball early into his 2018–19 campaign. With 911 career rebounds, Happ surpassed big man Claude Gregory (904) just three games into the season. He’ll have plenty of opportunity to build on that over the course of the season en route to the 1,000-career rebound club.

With a triple-double in game one followed by double-doubles in games two and three, it’s hard to pick which performance was more dominating. What isn’t hard is determining that Happ will be a problem for opposing teams all season long. While most of the college basketball world is well aware of his talents after watching him the past four years, he’ll have plenty of opportunity to continue to shine in the national spotlight this upcoming week.

Happ will start his three-peat campaign this Wednesday in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament. With three guaranteed games in the Bahamas, Happ will look to keep this pace up as the Badgers look to make a tournament run like they did back in 2014. They open with Stanford before taking on Florida/Oklahoma depending on Wednesday’s results. If Happ continues the pace he’s on against even better competition, there is a good chance he will make it a three-peat in the Big Ten Player of the Week honors.