No Boilers on First Team of Big Ten's All-Decade Team, but Didn't Carsen Edwards Belong?
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Big Ten released the last bit of its All-Decade team on Wednesday, and there were no Purdue players on the starting five.
First-team selections were Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky, Michigan's Trey Burke, Michigan State's Draymond Green and Denzel Valentine, and Ohio State's Evan Turner.
That means only three Boilermakers made the league's 16-team roster — there was a tie for the last spot, so the third team included six players instead of five. Purdue's Carsen Edwards was a second-team selection and JaJuan Johnson and Caleb Swanigan were third-team choices.
Here's the entire roster of the All-Decade team:
The Player of the Decade and Coach of the Decade will be announced on Thursday and Friday. Purdue's Matt Painter is one of the five finalists, along with Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Michigan's John Beilein, Ohio State's Thad Matta and Wisconsin's Bo Ryan.
Now that the complete team has been announced, there's been plenty of bickering about who was left off, with a lot of harping of fan-base injustice on all social media platforms.
There is a very obvious omission.
Even though there are three Boilermakers on the team already, it's a bit surprising that E'Twaun Moore isn't somewhere on this All-Decade team. His four-year career at Purdue was fabulous, and probably deserved a spot in this group.
The other Purdue argument was whether Carsen Edwards deserved to be a first-team selection instead of a second-team choice. The argument certainly can be made, especially when comparing Edwards to Evan Turner in THIS decade.
Turner had a great career at Ohio State, but his career ended in 2010, so he really only played half a season in this decade, a total of 24 games that included a less-than impressive farewell in the NCAA Tournament, where he shot just 36 from the field and the Buckeyes, who were a No. 2 seed, lost in the regional semifinals.
Edwards had a brilliant three years at Purdue, and his last two seasons, he was one of the best players in the country. He was an All-American, And his final NCAA Tournament run was one for the ages, where he scored 26, 42, 29 and 42 points, and his career-high 42 points came first against Villanova, the defending national champions, and then against Virginia, which beat Purdue in overtime and went on to win the 2019 NCAA title.
Your thoughts? Please feel free to weigh in on the comments section below.
Big Ten All-Decade First Team
- Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin
- Trey Burke, Michigan
- Drayman Green, Michigan State
- Denzel Valentine, Michgan State
- Evan Turner, Ohio State.
Big Ten All-Decade Second Team
- Victor Oladipo, Indiana
- Carsen Edwards, Purdue
- Jared Sullinger, Ohio State
- Cassius Winston, Michgan State
- Ethan Happ, Wisconsin
Big Ten All-Decade Third Team
- Yogi Ferrell, Indiana
- JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
- Caleb Swanigan, Purdue
- Aaron Craft, Ohio State
- D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State
- Jordan Morgan, Minnesota
