In the most anticlimactic news of the day, the Big Ten's most productive, consistent and dominant player, who happens to be the star of the conference's best team, has been named the conference's player-of-the-year.
A award basically decided in January was made official Monday evening, when Purdue's Caleb Swanigan was formalized as Big Ten Player-of-the-Year, to the surprise of no one.
In conference games only, Swanigan led the Big Ten in scoring (18.9 points per game) and rebounding (12.6), leading Purdue to an outright league title and doing so with rare consistency. He scored 11 or more points in every Big Ten game and recorded double-doubles in all but three conference games.
Swanigan's rebounding average was the best the Big Ten has since 1977, when Iowa's Bruce King averaged 12.9.
His season was highlighted by numerous masterful performances, led by a 25-point, 17-rebound showing at Michigan State amidst animosity directed toward him perhaps unlike anything seen in the Big Ten this season. In Purdue's two other biggest road wins — at Maryland and Northwestern — Swanigan went for 26 and 10 and 20 and 14, respectively.
In Mackey Arena, in a head-to-head meeting with Wisconsin's Ethan Happ — the eventual runner-up for the award, we assume — Swanigan scored 18 and grabbed 13 rebounds against the then-No. 13 Badgers while Happ grabbed just five rebounds and went 7-of-16 from the floor.
When Michigan State visited Mackey Arena late in the season, Swanigan scored 24 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and handed out five assists.
Among his biggest plays of the season were his game-winning free throw at Ohio State, which came after he passed out of the post to P.J. Thompson for a crucial three-pointer earlier, a three-pointer of great magnitude in a narrow win at Maryland and a three-point play with about a minute left in a close game at IU.
Swanigan is Purdue's first Big Ten Player-of-the-Year since JaJuan Johnson in 2011. Glenn Robinson (1994) and Steve Scheffler (1990) were prior winners. Before those years, Rick Mount was a two-time winner of the Chicago Tribune Big Ten MVP award and Jim Rowinski (1984) and Robinson claimed that honor, too.
Swanigan was also named first-team All-Big Ten Monday night. Obviously. He was named to the conference's All-Freshman Team last season, but otherwise did not earn All-Big Ten honors.
Earlier in the day, Swanigan was named a first-team All-American by USA Today, NBC Sports and Sporting News. He's a finalist for the Wooden Award and Naismith Trophy and most other honors of their kind. He was also just named a second-team Academic All-American.
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