Delany touts B1G hoops

ROSEMONT, Ill. - Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany described his conference 'on an uptick” when it comes to recent men's basketball.

'I don't care what metric you look at,” Delany said Thursday at Big Ten Media Day. 'If you look at the ACC Challenge, which I think is the most important breakthrough in November-December programming there is, we've tied or won it for five years. We lost it for 10 years ... I think it's been a very good indicator against a very proud and powerful conference that we've had some success.

'Everyone worries about regular-season basketball being minimized by the success of the postseason. For us, maybe we're the anomaly, but we've grown for five years in a row. Last year we had almost 3 million people and had 101 sellouts, 18 more than the previous year.”

Delany also touted the league's soaring television ratings for basketball. Big Ten games averaged 13 percent higher ratings than the average basketball telecast on ESPN, 12 percent better than ESPN2 and 9 percent higher on CBS. The league has won 24 NCAA tournament games the last two years.

'We think we're in a great place,” Delany said.

WISCONSIN UNANIMOUS

Wisconsin was chosen unanimously as the Big Ten's preseason favorite in men's basketball, as voted upon by a panel of media.

Michigan State was picked No. 2 followed by Ohio State. The Big Ten announces only the top three teams.

'Our guys live in the moment, or at least we're trying to - it appears that way,” Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan said. 'They're trying to get better.”

Wisconsin center Frank Kaminsky was picked unanimously as the league's preseason player of the year. Joining Kaminsky was teammate Sam Dekker, Indiana point guard Yogi Ferrell, Michigan guard Caris LeVert and Nebraska's Terran Petteway.

Kaminsky said he's just trying to improve and stay humble.

'At the end of the day I'm still a college basketball player,” he said.

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