Indiana coach

Tom Crean caused a bit of a stir

Monday when he openly questioned the Big Ten's criteria for awarding basketball Player of the Week awards.

Michigan sophomore point guard Trey Burke won the award this week, despite his team going 1-1.

Crean later took to Twitter, claiming that he wasn't questioning Burke's credentials, he was asking the Big Ten where "winning" fit into the criteria for a individual weekly award.

On Tuesday, Yahoo! Sports national columnist Pat Forde offered his take on the situation in his weekly "Forde Minutes" column.

"The Minutes wonders if there is more at play here; namely, the ongoing belief in some circles that Michigan and Ohio State routinely get the backrubs from the league office," Forde wrote. "Some Hoosiers were already miffed that complaints about Michigan guard Glenn Robinson III hitting IU’s Jordan Hulls in the face Feb. 2 (could have been a punch, could have been incidental contact) yielded no action from the Big Ten.

"This much is clear: Indiana at Michigan on March 10 keeps getting juicier."

The Robinson-Hulls incident received no public attention from the Big Ten office, one way or another.

Robinson claimed he didn't intentionally swing at Hulls, and Michigan coach John Beilein backed that claim as well. Crean, meanwhile, declined to comment on the matter altogether.

It's late-February, which means the dog days of college basketball are upon us.

Backrubs, punches, weekly award controversies.

March can get here any day now.

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