Wisconsin basketball: D’Mitrik Trice, Sydney Hilliard and Imani Lewis all receive postseason recognition

Over the past two days, the Big Ten Conference has announced their end of the season awards and all-conference teams for both women’s and men’s basketball. There weren’t a ton of surprises in terms of players of the year as Iowa’s Luka Garza took home the men’s award and Michigan’s Naz Hillmon took home the women’s.

The Wisconsin Badgers didn’t fare particularly well in the postseason honors department as only three members of the program were honored. As an FYI, there are three men’s teams (five players each) and two women’s teams (10 players each).

• D’Mitrik Trice, third-team selection coaches/media
• Sydney Hilliard, honorable mention coaches/media
• Imani Lewis, second-team media, honorable mention coaches

Here are the rest of the players that made the all-conference teams, per the B1G coaches, for the men:

FIRST TEAM

Kofi Cockburn, Illinois
AYO DOSUNMU, ILLINOIS
LUKA GARZA, IOWA
E.J. Liddell, Ohio State
Trevion Williams, Purdue

SECOND TEAM

Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
Joe Wieskamp, Iowa
Hunter Dickinson, Michigan
Isaiah Livers, Michigan
Franz Wagner, Michigan

THIRD TEAM

Marcus Carr, Minnesota
Aaron Henry, Michigan State
Duane Washington Jr., Ohio State
Ron Harper Jr., Rutgers
D’Mitrik Trice, Wisconsin

HONORABLE MENTION

Trent Frazier, Illinois
Jordan Bohannon, Iowa
Eric Ayala, Maryland
Aaron Wiggins, Maryland
Geo Baker, Rutgers

And here is the list voted on by the B1G media:

FIRST TEAM

Kofi Cockburn, Illinois
AYO DOSUNMU, ILLINOIS
Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
LUKA GARZA, IOWA
Hunter Dickinson, Michigan

SECOND TEAM

Joe Wieskamp, Iowa
Isaiah Livers, Michigan
Marcus Carr, Minnesota
E.J. Liddell, Ohio State
Trevion Williams, Purdue

THIRD TEAM

Franz Wagner, Michigan
Aaron Henry, Michigan State
Duane Washington Jr., Ohio State
Ron Harper Jr., Rutgers
D’Mitrik Trice, Wisconsin

HONORABLE MENTION

Trent Frazier, Illinois
Jordan Bohannon, Iowa
CJ Fredrick, Iowa
Eric Ayala, Maryland
Darryl Morsell, Maryland
Aaron Wiggins, Maryland
Teddy Allen, Nebraska
John Harrar, Penn State
Myreon Jones, Penn State
Myles Johnson, Rutgers
Jacob Young, Rutgers

As mentioned earlier, Garza was the player of the year pick for both the coaches and the media. Dickinson was named freshman of the year by both and Juwan Howard was named coach of the year by both.

The coaches also selected a Sixth Man of the Year (Andre Curbelo, Illinois) and a Defensive Player of the Year (Darryl Morsell, Maryland) while also selecting an all-freshman team and an all-defense team.

ALL-FRESHMAN TEAM

Andre Curbelo, Illinois
Keegan Murray, Iowa
Hunter Dickinson, Michigan
Zach Edey, Purdue
Jaden Ivey, Purdue

ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM

Trent Frazier, Illinois
Darryl Morsell, Maryland
Aaron Henry, Michigan State
Jamari Wheeler, Penn State
Myles Johnson, Rutgers

There was much consternation around the Big Ten Hoops Twittersphere about the exclusion of Michigan’s Franz Wagner from the all-defensive team or, honestly any Michigan player since they had the best defense in the league. I had picked Wagner as my defensive player of the year in Hammer & Rails’ postseason SB Nation Big Ten awards vote so I was certainly shocked by not seeing his name on the all-defensive team.

If you are interested, here are my votes:

First Team Selections

Luka Garza
Ayo Dosunmu
Trevion Williams
Trayce Jackson-Davis
Marcus Carr

Second Team Selections

Kofi Cockburn
Isaiah Livers
Franz Wagner
Joe Wieskamp
EJ Liddell

Third Team Selections

Hunter Dickinson
Ron Harper
D’Mitrik Trice
Donta Scott
Aaron Henry

Player of the Year: Luka Garza
Coach of the Year: Juwan Howard
Freshman of the Year: Hunter Dickinson
Defensive Player of the Year: Franz Wagner

Jim Polzin, among others, wondered why I had Carr picked on my first team and my response of “trying to strike some positional balance” isn’t the only reason I did it. Carr was a high usage, high producing player on a pretty bad team. Everyone knew he was the main/only option on the Gophers and he still was third in the league in points per game and assists per game (he was second in assist percentage). He was also No. 7 in the league for win shares while also getting to the free throw line the second most of any player and making the fourth highest percentage. Being a guard may have given him a leg up in my mind, but I just wanted to explain myself a little better than I did on Twitter.