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All-B1G Teams Released - 4 Gophers Honored

The Big Ten has announced their all conference teams and award winners and not surprisingly the Gophers didn't land a lot of players on the list. Even less surprisingly, all of them were from the defense.

Brace Hemmelgarn-US PRESSWIRE

I'm not terribly surprised by the results of the All-B1G ballots. The four Gophers recognized were:

2nd Team: D.L. Wilhite. D.L. was named to the 2nd team only by the media.

Honorable Mention: Michael Carter, Ra'Shede Hageman, and Troy Stoudemire. Carter was a unanimous selection while Shede and Troy were both Media only picks.

My thoughts?

- I'm disappointed that Wilhite wasn't a unanimous selection. It would have been nice to see him make 1st team, but I don't think his season (outside of sack numbers) was good enough to edge out some of the other picks.

- Actually, to be honest, I'm PO'd because the coaches didn't even place him on the HM team. WTF is with that?

- I'm also disappointed that Carter wasn't able to crack the 2nd team. My thought coming in was that you'd see D.L as a unanimous 2nd team with Carter getting one half (prob media).

- Can't complain about Shede or Troy making their way onto the list only at the HM level. If Shede had kept up his early season numbers then I think he'd have been worthy of being a second teamer.

- If Barker hadn't gotten hurt, talked to his mom's friend, and broken up with Kill in the mall food court then I think he'd have been a 2nd team selection.

- Zach Epping is probably an oversight for the HM team.

- I'm struggling to come up with other players that I think were worthy of selection, though given the Indiana numbers you'll see below I'm sure we could easily come up with players who were just as deserving of some HM love.

The full list including individual position POY winners can be found here. Here's a breakdown of total selections per team (NOTE: When the media and coaches split and named a player to different teams I used the higher ranking for the numbers below):

Ohio State: 17 Total (7 -1st; 4 - 2nd; 6 - HM)

Nebraska: 16 Total (5 -1st; 6 - 2nd; 5 - HM)

Penn State: 16 Total (6 -1st; 1 - 2nd; 8 - HM)

Wisconsin: 16 Total (7 -1st; 2 - 2nd; 7 - HM)

Michigan: 14 Total (3 -1st; 3 - 2nd; 8 - HM)

Michigan State: 11 Total (5 - 1st; 2 - 2nd; 4 - HM)

Northwestern: 11 Total (1 -1st; 2 - 2nd; 8 - HM)

Indiana: 10 Total (2 - 2nd; 8 - HM)

Iowa: 9 Total (1 - 1st; 1 - 2nd; 7 - HM)

Illinois: 8 Total (2 - 2nd; 6 - HM)

Purdue: 6 Total (1 -1st; 2 - 2nd; 3 - HM)

Minnesota: 4 Total (1 - 2nd; 3 - HM)

(NOTE: It was kind of hard to filter through the list so apologies if I made any errors. Feel free to correct me as needed.)

My thoughts on these numbers?

- Surprised that Indiana placed 11 on the list, even if the vast majority of them were HM.

- Biggest underacheiving teams if this list is a judge of talent? 1) Wisconsin, 2) Michigan State, 3) Illinois, 4) Iowa

- Minnesota was hurt by a lack of offensive players worthy of being on the list. The limited offensive production we had was (outside of Barker) too spread out to get anyone high enough to be even an HM. Even with that, it's hard not to feel slighted given the fact that teams like Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois were able to place at least double the number of HM candidates.

What do you think? Do you have Gophers that you think should have made the list or been higher? Are you upset that teams who did worse placed more players? Thoughts on why the Gophers got so little love?