I cannot transition into basketball season yet, but here are early (announced) Big Ten attendance figures

Big Ten men's games through Sunday:

Team  ---- Home Games  --- Average

Illinois - -- -- -- 4 ---------- 15,274

Indiana - -- -- -- 6  --------- 14,442 

Iowa - -- -- -- --  3 ----------10,807

Michigan - -- --  3 ---------  7,547

Michigan St - -- 3 ----------14,797 

Minnesota  -- -- 3 ----------11,679

Northwestern - 2 ---------- 3,807 

Ohio State - -- --4 ----------13,356 

Penn State - -- --5 ----------5,079

Purdue - -- -- --  4 ----------14,123

Wisconsin - -- --2 ----------17,230

I was told the following from Iowa associate athletics director Rick Klatt:

• Our three-game total represents a 27 percent increase over last year's first three games (Last year's average for the first three games was 8,480, a different of plus-2,237).

• Based on sales to date (Nov. 29, 2010) numbers provided to me earlier today by our ticket office for the next four games (and last four non-conference games) ... we have more tickets sold for all four of those games today than what attended the four comparable games a year ago. And, of course, we have two of the intrastate games (Northern Iowa and Iowa State) in our building this year compared to just one (Drake) a year ago.

• We also have a UI first coming in a few weeks: Fran McCaffery Bobblehead Night on Dec. 21.

• Lastly, we're sitting in pretty good shape vis-à-vis the Big Ten home opener (Dec. 29 vs. Illinois) with just about 70 percent of the house sold already. I like our chances of getting at or pretty darn near to 15,500…