OK, we understand that the 2010 All-Big Ten Women’s Volleyball 1st Team was the largest ever (or as far back as we checked, which was 2000 — see the table below), and that the total of 21 honorees tied last year’s total for the largest during that period. So, you might well ask, why more?
To which we have two answers. First, because the Big Ten is computationally challenged, and it’s really the Big 11, we like the number 22, which theoretically would have given each school the chance to place two players on the squad. Would we go for 24 once Nebraska joins? Hide your eyes, purists, the answer is “Absolutely!”
Second (but equally important), it’s the off-season! We can either speculate about the future, or debate the past. For now, we’re going with door number 2.
So this post looks at six players who performed at a very high level in 2010, but weren’t named to the All-Big Ten Team (though Jennifer Bonilla, Jennifer Cross, and Ashley Wittman were named to the All-Big Ten Freshman Team).
We’ve included six tables. The first looks at the breakdown of the All-Big Ten Teams from 2000 to 2010 by position. The links are to press releases discussing the awards for each year.
The next four tables include, for each of four positions — Middle Blocker, Outside Hitter, Setter, and Libero — the statistics (Big Ten matches only) for the All Big-Ten team honorees at the position and for any of our candidates who played that position. (If a player was listed at multiple positions — like Tori Dixon, who was listed as OH/MH/Opp — we included them in the first position in their list.)
Players listed in ALL CAPS were unanimous selections.
These tables are sortable — click on the arrows at the top of each column to re-order the rows. Click on the players’ names to go to their player bio or an article about them.
The last table includes statistics for all 21 players named to the All-Big Ten Team, plus our six candidates.
Oh, and we don’t look at this as a zero-sum game. We aren’t knocking anyone who was named to the team. We’re exhibiting a math bias towards addition over subtraction.