Big Ten Hoops Weekly: Mich.-ISU shooting gallery

Here's to good health.

Last season, Northwestern guard/forward Drew Crawford and Penn State guard Tim Frazier had their senior seasons cut short by injuries. Crawford was done after the 10th game with a torn labrum and Frazier was finished after four games because of a torn Achilles tendon.

Both got medical redshirt waivers to play a fifth season, and a good thing for their teams that is. Because both are back.

Crawford had 25 points and 11 rebounds in Northwestern's opener, a 72-55 win over Eastern Illinois last Saturday. He played 35 minutes.

Frazier scored 25 points and had 10 rebounds and four assists in Penn State's first game, a 74-62 victory over Bucknell last Saturday.

Frazier was a first-team All-Big Ten player on the media team in 2011-12. Crawford was a consensus third-team all-league player. Welcome back, men. Your teams were lost without you last season. Northwestern was 4-14 league play, Penn State 2-16.

Alas, Penn State became the first Big Ten team to lose a game this season Wednesday night when it was dropped at home by Bucknell, 90-80. Frazier had 13 points and 7 assists, but Bucknell made 60.9 percent of its shots including 10-of-15 from 3-point distance.

Second-ranked Michigan State is covered with glory after its 78-74 win over No. 1 Kentucky. Does sophomore guard Gary Harris look like the league's Player of the Year-to-be or what? But let's not lose track of Michigan.

The Wolverines opened with predictable routs of Massachusetts-Lowell and South Carolina State, though the first game was tied at halftime. What wasn't predictable is that Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III didn't carry Michigan.

Sophomore guard Caris LeVert scored 24 points for the Wolverines in their Tuesday night waltz over S.C. State. He made 6 of his 7 three-point tries. Jon Horford, a junior forward, totaled 27 rebounds in the two games.

Michigan plays at Iowa State Sunday in Ames. The ball will be in the air. The Wolverines are 20-for-46 from 3-point range through two games, while Iowa State is 26-of-57. Dick Vitale will be there for ESPN. He'll use his term "trifecta" a few times, don't you think?

Not to harp on this, but ...

Drake transfer Rayvonte Rice has 52 points in three games for Illinois. He scored a game-high 18 for the Illini Wednesday night in their 64-52 win over Valparaiso.

Meanwhile, Drake transfer Joey King has 29 points in two games for Minnesota.

Guard Richard Carter scored 38 points for Drake in its season-opening 61-59 win at Illinois-Chicago. You can't have him, Big Ten. He's a senior. He played his first two seasons at Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kansas. Try saying that fast three times.

The RPI won't mean anything until teams have played half their schedules, if not more. Right now, teams like Manhattan and South Carolina-Upstate are way up the RPI charts. Way, way up.

But the Pomeroy Ratings are legit right out of the gates. Through Tuesday's games, the Big Ten teams were ranked thusly: 2. Michigan State (behind Louisville), 6. Ohio State, 11. Wisconsin, 15. Michigan, 23. Iowa, 25. Minnesota, 42. Indiana, 46. Illinois, 59. Purdue, 75. Penn State, 76. Nebraska, 78. Northwestern.

Perhaps the most-exciting player in the Big Ten isn't a starter. Forward Sam Thompson of Ohio State is a jumper.

Through Tuesday's games, Michigan State led the Big Ten in team field goal percentage at .500 (72-of-144). That ranked 70th nationally.

Illinois, tied for 94th before its Wednesday night game against Valparaiso, was the only other Big Ten team in the top 100. But the Illini shot an icy 21-of-66 Wednesday against Valpo, so out they go.

That's right. One Big Ten team is in the nation's top 100 in field goal percentage.

Yes, it's really, really early in the season. But still, ewww! It's not like most of the 24 games Big Ten teams have played (23 of them wins) were against Kentucky. In fact, only one other game was against a team from a BCS conference (Wisconsin's 59-53 win over Florida Tuesday).