Big Ten Basketball 2023 Milestone Watch

It’s February and we’ve got just over a month left in the regular season. Time to look at what milestones and major accomplishments have been reached this season and which can still occur.

Already Accomplished This Season

Coaching Milestones

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• Matt Painter gets win #400 at Purdue. On January 8, against Nebraska, Matt Painter became the 5th Big Ten coach to reach 400 wins at a Big Ten school. He joined Tom Izzo (680 and counting), Bob Knight (659), Gene Keady (512), and Lou Henson (421) and at 406 has an outside shot of catching Lou Henson this season. I would very much enjoy it if the Purdue Boilermakers won enough games that Painter passed Henson this season. Full disclosure: Gary Williams did have 461 wins at Maryland, but they were obviously not in the Big Ten during his career.
• Fran McCaffery gets career win #500 and #250 as the coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. Fran reached career win #500 against Georgia Tech in the B1G-ACC challenge. He previously had 112 wins at Siena, 90 at UNC Greensboro, and 49 at Lehigh (back when they were the Engineers). Fran had an opportunity to get #250 at Iowa in the game after his 500th win, but he lost to Duke and had to settle for reaching that milestone against Iowa State instead. Fran ranks 17th in Big Ten history at 257 right now (19th if we count Maryland, Penn State, Nebraska, and Rutgers coaches from before they joined the conference as Lefty Driesell and Gary Williams at Maryland would also be in front of him). Next up is Wisconsin’s Bud Foster (265) and then the Iowa record held by Tom Davis at 269. Theoretically, Harold Olsen’s 274 is still reachable this season but that would require Fran to make his first Sweet 16 of his career and that seems unrealistic.
• Steve Pikiell gets career win #300. If we only count Division 1 wins, Pikiell is currently at 305 (pending the result of the Minnesota game). If we count his season as head coach of D3 Wesleyan University, you can add 5 to that total. Pikiell toiled in the America East Conference for 11 seasons at Stony Brook, which accounts for 192 of his career wins.

Individual Game Accomplishments

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• Trayce Jackson-Davis (Indiana Hoosiers) and Jalen Pickett (Penn State Nittany Lions) get triple-doubles. The triple-double is a really difficult accomplishment. TJD got the first of his career against Nebraska in December during a 81-65 home victory when he went for 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists. Pickett however was the first Big Ten player to achieve a triple-double this season as during the Gavitt Games he went for 15 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds against Butler.
• Update: With apologies to Coleman Hawkins, and most of the Illini fanbase (but not the student section), I did overlook Coleman Hawkins having 15 points/10 rebounds/10 assists against Syracuse during the B1G-ACC challenge. All blame goes to the Illini writers for not speaking up when I put an early version of this article up for other writers’ input.

Career Milestones

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• Trayce Jackson Davis became the 16th Big Ten player to reach 1000 rebounds on Tuesday, as his 20 against Maryland put him at 1010 for his career. He is the 4th Hoosier to reach 1000 career rebounds and the Indiana record is well within his sights at 1091 by Alan Henderson. If he reaches 1100 (which seems fairly achievable), he would be behind just Herb Williams (Ohio State, 1111), Joe Barry Carroll (Purdue, 1148), Ethan Happ (Wisconsin Badgers, 1217), Jordan Murphy (Minnesota Gophers, 1305), and the Big Ten record holder Jerry Lucas who had 1411 rebounds for Ohio State in just 3 seasons. Next up on the list for TJD however is Michigan State’s Antonio Smith at 1016. Rutgers (2), Penn State (1), Maryland (1), and Nebraska (2) players have also reached 1000 rebounds in their non-Big Ten careers, but only two (Phil Sellers’s 1115 at Rutgers and Jesse Arnelle’s 1238 at Penn State) were over 1100.

1500+ Point Career Scorers

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The Big Ten currently has 8 active career 1500+ point scorers led by Trayce Jackson-Davis and most recently joined by Andrew Funk.

Trayce Jackson Davis 1959, 4th season - all at Indiana

David Jenkins Jr. 1935, 5th season - 2 at South Dakota State (1194), 1 at UNLV (399), 1 at Utah (264)

Jalen Pickett 1934, 5th season - 3 at Siena (1139), 2 at Penn State

Camren Wynter 1833, 5th season - 4 at Drexel (1659), 1 at Penn State

Jahmir Young 1776, 4th season - 3 at Charlotte (1421), 1 for Maryland Terrapins

Xavier Johnson 1674, 5th season, 3 at Pitt (1152), 2 at Indiana

Filip Rebraca 1644, 5th season - 3 at North Dakota (1129), 2 at Iowa

Andrew Funk 1510, 5th season - 4 at Bucknell (1230), 1 at Penn State

1000+ Point Career Scorers

This list is almost certainly incomplete, but I tried my best. Feel free to add any I missed in the comments. By my count there are 19 active Big Ten players between 1000 and 1500 career points. You will note that just two of them are in their 3rd season: Hunter Dickinson and Zach Edey.

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Justice Sueing 1495, 5th season - 2 at California (886), 2.05 at Ohio State

Jamison Battle 1365, 4th season - 2 at George Washington (636), 2 at Minnesota

Hunter Dickinson 1359, 3rd season - all for Michigan Wolverines

Terrence Shannon Jr. 1294, 4th season - 3 at Texas Tech (915), 1 for Illinois Fighting Illini

Boo Buie 1287, 4th season - all for Northwestern Wildcats

Tyson Walker 1281, 4th season - 2 at Northeastern (680), 2 at Michigan State

Zach Edey 1259, 3rd season - all at Purdue

Sam Griesel 1217, 5th season - 4 at North Dakota State (976), 1 for Nebraska Cornhuskers

Miller Kopp 1216, 5th season - 3 at Northwestern (832), 2 at Indiana

Donta Scott 1195, 4th season - all at Maryland

Joey Hauser 1144, 4th season - 1 at Marquette (329), 3 at Michigan State

Jaelin Llewellyn 1120, 4th season - 3 at Princeton (1064), 1 at Michigan

Chase Audige 1158, 4th season - 1 at William & Mary (297), 3 at Northwestern

Cam Spencer 1136, 4th season - 3 at Loyola Maryland (848), 1 at Rutgers

Matthew Mayer 1118, 5th season - 4 at Baylor (865), 1 at Illinois

Sean McNeil 1105, 4th season - 3 at West Virginia (900), 1 at Ohio State

Isaac Likekele 1084, 5th season - 4 at Oklahoma State (1015), 1 at Ohio State

Seth Lundy 1074, 4th season - all at Penn State

Myles Dread 1028, 5th season - all at Penn State

Achievement Watch - More Career Milestones within Reach

2000 career points

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Trayce Jackson-Davis and Jalen Pickett seem like safe bets to reach 2000 points as they are the focal points of their respective offenses and need less than 10 points/game in their remaining games to reach the milestone.

David Jenkins Jr. is close (only 65 away), but he only has 78 points thru 22 games this season. I’m guessing he ends up just short, but he didn’t come to Purdue to reach 2000 career points and seems thrilled to be part of a successful team.

Camren Wynter likewise isn’t averaging enough points/game to quite reach 2000 career points in his final season. He would need to become a bigger part of the Nittany Lion offense moving forward.

Jahmir Young is behind Jenkins and Wynter on the active scoring list right now, but he a better bet to reach 2000 points this season. Averaging 16.1 points/game this season, he would need just 14 more games. A good Big Ten tournament run by the Terps combined with a Sweet 16 appearance could get him there.

The real question is how high will Trayce Jackson-Davis get? He currently sits at 1959 with at least 10 more games on Indiana’s schedule. Barring injury, he’s going to get 2000. Will he get there at home against #1 Purdue on Saturday? 43 points is his career best so its not impossible. If Indiana was to make a deep NCAA tournament run, TJD might be able to reach around 2300. That would put him behind Calbert Cheaney (Indiana), Steve Alford (Indiana), Shawn Respert (Michigan State), Glen Rice (Michigan), Rick Mount (Purdue), and Luka Garza (Iowa). Oh, and Rutger’s Phil Sellers if you want to count him. Don’t forget, TJD can return for a fifth season if he takes a COVID year.

200 Career Steals

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Caleb McConnell sits at 188 career steals. With at least 10 more games and averaging 2.3 steals/game, he should be able to reach the 200 milestone which would make him the 25th player do to so in the Big Ten men’s basketball (there are another 10 from the pre Big Ten programs). The Rutgers record is 211 by Myles Mack and is also within striking distance. Aaron Craft’s Big Ten record of 337 is out of reach as is pre-B1G Nebraska’s Cookie Belcher’s 353.

Potential 1000 Point Scorers

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Talon Cooper 999, 4th season - 3 at Morehead State (773), 1 at Minnesota

There will probably be some others to achieve this milestone this year, but I didn’t note anybody else particularly close when I was going thru the rosters.

What did I miss? What did I get wrong? What’s your favorite achievement reached so far? Your favorite potential milestone that could be reached this season? Tell us in the comments.