It is March.

The Big Ten regular season is over, and my goodness what a conclusion it was. The week started with Penn State stunning USC to give the Lions a great opportunity to sneak into the conference tournament, an opportunity they ultimately squandered in a rout to Indiana.

At the top, Minnesota locked in a double bye thanks in part to Michigan’s remarkable, improbable, unbelievable overtime win against Ohio State. The Gophers took down Illinois in a close one, one of two narrow defeats the Illini took to the Big Ten’s elite, and the losses cost them a chance at a bye for the tournament.

With the 0-2 Illinois week, it was Washington who made the leap up into the Top Nine, narrowly edging out Oregon for the final spot with a 70-69 win. Purdue also vanquished Penn State’s chances with a 67-62 win over Northwestern in Joe McKeown’s final game as head coach.

The Wildcats were also joined by Rutgers as the two Big Ten teams currently searching for new head coaches, as it was announced Coquese Washington will not return for the Scarlet Knights. The offense never found new life under Washington, and Rutgers will be looking for a new voice to help get the program back to the place it once was less than a decade ago.

Now, we move forward to what March is all about. Today, I will go over my picks for all the conference awards, awards that I do not have an official ballot for, in case that needs to be said. Tomorrow, I’ll make my Big Ten Tournament picks that are always 100% right without fail. See you then!

I would like to preface that these selections were made with the previous award format in mind: Two 10-player teams, five-player teams for All-Defense and All-Freshman and individual honors as normal. Since I am posting this in the hours after the actual release, I now know they added a five-player Third Team and expanded the Defense and Freshman teams to eight. Oops!

Regardless, these are my picks. Yell at me below if you would like to!

Coaches had Berry Wallace (unanimous) and Syla Swords over Ciezki and Prince. Media had Swords over Sellers.

Betts may have entered the season as the runaway favorite to take home the top conference honors, but this was by no means an easy decision by the end, at least for me. Jaloni Cambridge had a larger statistical output and was more of the sole driving force for Ohio State’s success, and I heavily debated between those two specifically here.

In the end, the Buckeyes missed out on Top Four and UCLA was flawless, and while Betts’ scoring went down from last season, she remained a tremendous two-way monster inside that got stronger as Big Ten play continued. Her teammate Kiki Rice also deserved consideration here, but Betts was able to make her mark in a big way, even in lopsided victories, and was my ultimate choice here.

Elsewhere, Ava Heiden and Olivia Olson were my next easiest first-team decisions, as both led the way for their extremely impressive teams and deserve the recognition. Oluchi Okananwa I feel similarly for, as she helped Maryland get through significant injury woes and was also dominant on both ends of the floor.

Sayvia Sellers rose to the occasion this season for Washington and led the Huskies to a great season. Shay Ciezki couldn’t lead Indiana to equal success, but it wasn’t for her lack of trying, as she has some of the most remarkable stats of anyone in the conference, both in volume and efficiency. Jazzy Davidson also won me over for being USC’s do-it-all true freshman and for her activity on the defensive side of the floor.

My final pick for this first team was Britt Prince, who I think, like Ciezki, had to do a whole lot of heavy lifting to keep her team afloat. She still retained 50-40-90 efficiency, like Ciezki, and has the Cornhuskers in the NCAA Tournament hunt which is a huge feat without Natalie Potts.

Coaches had Hannah Stuelke, Grace VanSlooten, Katie Fiso and Kara Dunn over Howell, Kneepkens, McMiller and Wright. Media had Stuelke, VanSlooten and Grace Sullivan over Howell, McKinney and Wright.

Swords and Wallace both end up on my second-team, but I have no issues with their first-team placements. They were the exact two I was debating between with Prince.

Wallace was the closest to moving up a spot, and she had a fantastic sophomore season with the Illini. I went with Prince because I felt she had stronger efficiency and playmaking numbers, and Wallace had a better overall support cast around her. Could go either way on that one but that’s how I ended up here.

Swords, statistically, is behind both of those players, but has a knack for coming up big in huge moments and is clearly a significant driver of everything Michigan does when you watch them play. It feels like she is due for a meteoric rise here soon, but that didn’t quite come this year so I kept her in this spot.

The second-team picks we all agree with — Blair, Jaquez and Grocholski — I am glad we do. Blair had a marvelous season in East Lansing and, to me, felt like the most valuable player on that team which is why I ended up leaving VanSlooten off. Jaquez is the best role player in the conference and deserves credit for that, while Grocholski just continues to display tremendous efficiency within that Minnesota machine.

Of the snubs from my list, I am probably most offended by two: Kneepkens and McKinney. They each made a second-team apiece, but they should both be on both. McKinney does a little bit of everything for the Gophers and is one of their best defenders. Kneepkens is an efficiency juggernaut who stretched UCLA’s attack and made it as powerful as it has become. The Bruins are 15.7 points better when Kneepkens is on the floor, and there’s a reason for that.

McMiller and Wright’s omissions make more sense to me. Kiyomi McMiller has to be the most polarizing player in the Big Ten, and for awhile I was on the negative pole. But eventually, I found her outrageous late-season production too strong to not recognize as she very nearly willed Penn State into the Big Ten Tournament on her own. That said, her metrics are terrible and I understand her absence, especially on the coaches side. Wright got beat by her Hawkeye teammate, Stuelke, which is an extremely fair decision. I leaned Wright’s perimeter and playmaking efficiency but have no qualms about the pick.

Avery Howell was my final personal pick, and I feel like she also deserved more credit (honorable mention in both). She’s a strong defender, one of the Big Ten’s best three-point shooters and also averaged 8.4 rebounds per game as a guard. For as good as Sellers was this year, and I agree she was, it was Howell that led Washington in win shares for the season, and I thought she should have been here, or at least on the third team I didn’t know existed.

Coaches and Media both chose Cori Close (UCLA)

My experience with the Big Ten honors has been to assume the safest possible choice will win the big stuff. As you shall see, that held true for another season.

Cori Close is a choice that I think is impossible to argue against, it’s just not how I prefer to give out the honor. Close coached the best team in the Big Ten, and not only that, decimated almost everyone in its path. That said, UCLA finished exactly where I thought it would based on the talent the roster had, which is why I preferred to go with someone else.

Jan Jensen may have the benefit of being Iowa’s long-time assistant coach, but this is still Year 2 for her at the helm. Not only that, but this was the least established Iowa roster in many seasons, as even last season had Lucy Olsen to lead the way. I thought the Hawkeyes may stumble a bit before hitting their stride in a season or two, but no, Iowa is the No. 2 seed and blew away all of my preseason expectations. That’s what makes a Coach of the Year to me, and I would have liked to have seen Jensen get that recognition.

If not Jensen, Dawn Plitzuweit would have been my next choice for similar over performance reasons. Yes, she had impressive veteran retention, but this roster of Gophers has never been to the NCAA Tournament, and now they have a Double Bye and are currently projected to host. Again, Close is a great coach and has done a marvelous job, I just preferred other narratives.

Coaches and Media chose Lauren Betts for Defensive Player of the Year. Battle was not chosen by the Media.

Another very tough call, but in the end, four steals per game was something I could not overlook. Kennedy Cambridge was such an active, tenacious defender for Ohio State and I thought she was the best choice for the honor.

Of course Betts is a phenomenal defender, she won the award last year too, and it’s a hard one to deny. I agreed with Davidson’s high activity getting rewarded, and the same goes for Brooke Quarles Daniels, who I am so glad to see make both teams here. She is the most ferocious guard defender in the conference and has disrupted so many players of varying sizes that she needed to be here.

On the 10- and 8-player teams (dumb, what is this format), Battle was left off the Media list, as was the entirety of Minnesota. Whether you go with Battle or McKinney, I thought it was important to include the Gophers on the All-Defense team, they were such an impressive group this year on that side of the floor.

Also, despite my qualms, I do like the larger list to give credit to players like Okananwa and Iowa’s Kylie Feuerbach, two tremendous defenders I did not find room for.

Coaches and Media chose Davidson for Freshman of the Year.

On the eight-player teams, all five of these players were chosen on both sides. I felt like it was a debate between seven really strong freshman campaigns, with Brynn McGaughy and Kylee Kitts both being very close here (both made the media team, only McGaughy made the coaches team).

Davidson was the pick here for me, but perhaps not as lopsided as I once thought with Cearah Parchment finishing the season extremely strong. Elsewhere, Jackson’s playmaking as a first-year player really stood out, and both Mack and Makalusky added significant scoring punches to their respective rosters.

It ultimately came down to Makalusky vs. McGaughy for my fifth spot, and the way Makalusky finished the season scoring the ball pushed me over the edge. Indiana has been a better team with her in the starting lineup, and I’m not sure where the Hoosiers finish in the Big Ten without her efforts.

Coaches and Media both chose Dugalić.

Hargrove ended up starting nine games for Nebraska, which may have disqualified her. She was so important off the bench for the Cornhuskers that I would have went with her anyway, but if she was not eligible, Dugalić is a great secondary option.

For as good as UCLA is, the Bruins are not a particularly deep team. That makes Dugalić’s efforts off the bench all the more important, as she can plug into any of the forward roles and bring key shooting, rebounding and defensive prowess wherever she is needed. Her minutes have gone up this season despite starting only three games, and she will continue to be a massive part of UCLA’s title push, both for the conference and nationally.

Tomorrow: Big Ten Tournament Predictions

Photo Credit: UCLA Women’s Basketball (@UCLAWBB), Twitter

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