2010–11 Big Ten Conference men's basketball season

The 2010–11 Big Ten Conference men's basketball season marked the continuation of the annual tradition of competitive basketball among Big Ten Conference members that began in 1904. The non-conference portion of the 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 8, 2010. Conference play began on December 27, 2010.|Ohio state won the regular season Big Ten title. Following conference play, Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis hosted the 2011 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament from Thursday, March 10 through Sunday, March 13, which was also won by Ohio State. The Big Ten Conference hosted second and third round games of the 2011 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament at the United Center in Chicago March 18 and 20, 2011.

The Big Ten had seven teams invited to the 68-team 2011 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament (NCAA tournament) and one team invited to the 2011 National Invitation Tournament (NIT). Ohio State was a number one seed and along with Wisconsin survived until the Sweet Sixteen round. No Big Ten teams made the elite eight and the Big Ten finished with a 7–7 record in the tournament. Northwestern made the elite eight round of the 32-team NIT before being eliminated.

JaJuan Johnson was the regular season MVP and Jared Sullinger was the 2011 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament MVP. Both earned first team recognition as 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans and Sullinger earned numerous National Freshman of the Year Awards, including the USBWA National Freshman of the Year. Blake Hoffarber earned 2nd team Academic All-America recognition. The conference led the nation in attendance for the 35th straight season with a 12,826 overall average and 7 of the top 25 schools.

Following the season several athletes represented the Big Ten as members of USA Basketball team USA honorees: Keith Appling, Meyers Leonard and Tim Hardaway Jr. were on Team USA for the 2011 FIBA Under-19 World Championship, while Trevor Mbakwe and Draymond Green were on Team USA for the 2011 Summer Universiade coached by Matt Painter. Five Big Ten athletes were drafted in the 2011 NBA draft with JaJuan Johnson (27th overall) and four additional selections (Jon Leuer, Darius Morris, Jon Diebler and E'Twaun Moore) in the second round.

Preseason
Seventeen members of the 2009-10 All-Conference teams returned, including five players who earned first-team honors over the prior two seasons and a previous Big Ten Player of the Year. Eight career 1,000-points scorers, including two 1,500-point scorers returned. Fourteen of the conference's top scorers and rebounders in all games played from last season, including five of the top 10 of each category returned. Eight players that led the conference in a statistical category last season for all games played also returned.

The Big Ten media panel announced that they selected Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue as the preseason media day selections. They also announced the 2010–11 All-Big Ten Conference first-team selections: Kalin Lucas MSU, Demetri McCamey ILL , E'Twaun Moore PUR , Jon Leuer WIS , and JaJuan Johnson PUR. Lucas repeated as the preseason conference player of the year.

Preseason watchlists
On October 4, 2010, the Wooden Award preseason watch list included eight Big Ten players. The watchlist was composed of 50 players who were not transfers, freshmen or medical redshirts. The list will be reduced to a 30-player mid-season watchlist in December and a final national ballot of about 20 players in March. The Naismith College Player of the Year watchlist of 50 players was announced on November 16, 2010. In late February, a shorter list of the Top 30 will be compiled in preparation for a March vote to narrow the list to the four finalists.

Lauer, Moore, Minnesota's Blake Hoffarber, and Ohio State's David Lighty were named as candidates for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award.

Rankings
The Big Ten Conference entered the season with five teams ranked in the USA Today/ESPN Preseason Top 25 Men's Basketball Coaches' Poll.

Tournaments
Big Ten teams emerged victorious in the following tournament:

ACC–Big Ten Challenge
The 12th annual ACC–Big Ten Challenge matchups were announced on May 12, 2010. The November 29&mdash;December 1 schedule with game times and locations was set on August 9, 2010.

Season
The non-conference portion of the 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 8, 2010, with Illinois defeating UC Irvine in the opening round of the 2010 Coaches Vs. Cancer Classic. Conference play began on December 27, 2010, with Penn State traveling to play Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana.

On December 17, 2010, the Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany announced that Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo would serve a one-game suspension for what the National Collegiate Athletic Association determined was a "inadvertent secondary recruiting violation".

On March 1, Jon Diebler tied the Big Ten record with 10 made three-point shots as Ohio State clinched a share of the Big Ten championship in a victory over Penn State. On March 6, they clinched the title outright in a victory over Wisconsin. Ohio State achieved 34 victories, marking the highest total by a conference member since the 2006–07 Buckeyes went 35–4 and the 34–3 record was the conference's highest winning percentage (.919) since the 2004–05 Illinois Fighting Illini went 37–2 (.948).

The Big Ten's 12,826-fans average attendance led the nation the 35th consecutive season by more than 1,500 fans more than the next-closest conference. It was the 19th consecutive year the Big Ten achieved two million attendanees. Its seven top 25 average attendance schools surpassed all other conferences by at least three. The following schools were among the top 25 Wisconsin (7th, 17,230), Illinois (10th, 15,851), Indiana (12th, 15,259), Ohio State (13th, 15,125), Michigan State (15th, 14,797), Purdue (17th, 13,916), Minnesota (24th, 13,241). Other top-5 conferences were Big East (11,323), SEC (11,187), Big 12 (10,716), and ACC (10,266).

Player of the week
Throughout the conference regular season, the Big Ten offices named a player of the week each Monday.
 * Players of the week

Honors and accolades
On February 3, 2011, Michigan's Zack Novak (District 4), Northwestern's Drew Crawford (District 5) and Minnesota's Blake Hoffarber (District 5) were selected by CoSIDA as among the forty Academic All-District players, making them finalists for fifteen Academic All-American selections later in the month. Hoffarber was named as a second team Academic All-American. The conference also had 37 Academic All-Conference Team selections.

Jared Sullinger and JaJuan Johnson were among the ten finalists for the Oscar Robertson Trophy. Demetri McCamey, Sullinger, Johnson E'Twaun Moore and Jon Leuer were Naismith Award Midseason Top 30 List selections. McCamey and Jordan Taylor are Bob Cousy Award finalists. Sullinger was among the five finalists for the Wayman Tisdale Award. Moore, Leuer and David Lighty were selected among the ten Lowe's Senior CLASS Award finalists.

Conference honors
Two sets of conference award winners were recognized by the Big Ten - one selected by league coaches and one selected by the media.

NABC
The National Association of Basketball Coaches announced their Division I All-District teams on March 9, recognizing the nation's best men's collegiate basketball student-athletes. Selected and voted on by member coaches of the NABC, 245 student-athletes, from 24 districts were chosen. The selection on this list were then eligible for the State Farm Coaches' Division I All-America teams. The following list represented the Big Ten players chosen to the list. Since the Big Ten Conference was its own district, this is equivalent to being named All-Big Ten by the NABC.

First Team Second Team
 * JaJuan Johnson Purdue
 * Jared Sullinger Ohio State
 * Jordan Taylor Wisconsin
 * Jon Leuer Wisconsin
 * Talor Battle Penn State
 * E'Twaun Moore Purdue
 * William Buford Ohio State
 * David Lighty Ohio State
 * Darius Morris Michigan
 * Trevor Mbakwe Minnesota

USBWA
On March 10, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association released its 2010–11 Men's All-District Teams, based on voting from its national membership. There were nine regions from coast to coast, and a player and coach of the year were selected in each. The following lists all the Big Ten representatives selected within their respective regions.

District II (NY, NJ, DE, DC, PA, WV) District V (OH, IN, IL, MI, MN, WI)
 * Talor Battle, Penn State

Player of the Year Coach of the Year All-District Team District VI (IA, MO, KS, OK, NE, ND, SD)
 * JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
 * Matt Painter, Purdue
 * JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
 * Jon Leuer, Wisconsin
 * Kalin Lucas, Michigan State
 * Demetri McCamey, Illinois
 * E'Twaun Moore, Purdue
 * Jared Sullinger, Ohio State
 * Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin

None Selected

National postseason honors
Jordan Taylor, Jon Leuer, Jared Sullinger, JaJuan Johnson, E'Twaun Moore were among the 20 players on the final ballot for the John R. Wooden Award.

Johnson and Sullinger were named first team 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans by the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA). They were also first team selections by Sporting News and Associated Press who also selected Jordan Taylor to their second teams. The National Association of Basketball Coaches named Johnson and Sullinger to its first team and Taylor and Moore to its third team. The Associated Press named Talor Battle, Jon Leuer, and E'Twaun Moore as honorable mention selections. No other conference had 2 first-team selections by USBWA, Sporting News and AP, and the Big Ten was the only conference with three on the first or second AP and Sporting News teams.

Sullinger won the Wayman Tisdale Award as the USBWA's National Freshman of the Year and Sporting News' Freshman of the Year. Sullinger, Aaron Craft, Jereme Richmond and Tim Hardaway Jr. were among the 21 players selected to the 2011 Collegeinsider.com Freshmen All-America team.

Following the season four players were invited to the June 17 – 24, 2011 17-man tryouts for the 12-man 2011 FIBA Under-19 World Championship team by USA Basketball: Hardaway (UofM), Keith Appling (MSU), Melsahn Basabe (Iowa) and Meyers Leonard (Ill.). The 12 selected players will compete as Team USA in the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championships in Latvia from June 30 – July 10, 2011. Appling, Hardaway and Leonard made the final roster.

Matt Painter coached Team USA to a 5th-place finish in the 2011 World University Games. The team included Trevor Mbakwe and Draymond Green.

Postseason
With 8 invitations to either the 2011 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament or 2011 National Invitation Tournament for its 11 schools, the Big Ten Conference had the highest combined percentage of competitors (72.7%) of all conferences in these two tournaments.

Big Ten tournament
Ohio State won the 2011 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament behind Tournament most outstanding player, Jared Sullinger as repeat Big Ten men's basketball tournament champions. Finalist Penn State was attempting to be the first school to win the championship by winning 4 games since the 2000–01 Iowa Hawkeyes did so in the 2001 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament.

NCAA tournament
The Big Ten Conference landed 7 2011 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament invitations, including the overall number 1 seed in the tournament, Ohio State, who is making its 23rd appearance and 3rd consecutive. Purdue (3 seed, 24th and 5th consecutive appearance), Wisconsin (4 seed, 17th and 13th consecutive appearance), Michigan (8 seed, 18th appearance, first since 2009), Illinois (9 seed, 29th appearance, first since 2009), Penn State (10 seed, 9th appearance, first since 2001) and Michigan State (10 seed, 25th and 14th consecutive appearance) also received bids. Seven NCAA bids tied the conference record (1990 and 2009). The opening Friday of the tournament marked the first time that the Big Ten has ever gone 4–0 on a day in the tournament. This marked the fourth consecutive season that the Big Ten had at least 2 Sweet Sixteen participants (Ohio State and Wisconsin).

National Invitation tournament
Northwestern's NIT invitation gave it the schools third consecutive postseason invitation, a school record.

Other tournaments
The Big Ten did not have any entrants in the other post season tournaments.

2011 NBA draft

 * The following All-Big Ten performers were listed as seniors: JaJuan Johnson, E'Twaun Moore, Talor Battle, David Lighty, Jon Leuer, Demetri McCamey, Jon Diebler, and Michael Thompson
 * Darius Morris has sought the advice of the NBA's undergraduate advisory committee to determine his draft prospects. On May 4, Morris announced his final decision not to withdraw his name prior to the May 8 deadline and to enter the June 23, 2011 NBA draft.
 * The following were Big Ten underclassmen, who declared early for the 2011 draft: Darius Morris, Jereme Richmond, Ralph Sampson III, John Shurna.
 * The following were Big Ten underclassmen who entered their name in the draft but who did not hire agents and opted to return to college:Ralph Sampson III & John Shurna.

A total of five Big Ten players were selected in the 2011 NBA draft: JaJuan Johnson (1st round, 27th overall), Jon Leuer (2nd round, 40th overall), Darius Morris (2nd round, 41st overall), Jon Diebler (2nd round, 51st overall), and E'Twaun Moore (2nd round, 55th overall).

Draft-day trades

 * The New Jersey Nets acquired the draft rights to 25th pick Marshon Brooks from the Boston Celtics in exchange for the draft rights to 27th pick JaJuan Johnson and a 2014 second-round draft pick.

Pre-draft trades

 * On December 15, 2010, the New Jersey Nets acquired Sasha Vujačić and a 2011 first-round draft pick from the Los Angeles Lakers, while the Lakers acquired Joe Smith, Golden State's 2011 and Chicago's 2012 second-round draft picks from the Nets in a three-team trade with the Lakers and the Houston Rockets. Previously, the Nets acquired a 2011 second-round draft pick from the Golden State Warriors as a compensation for delaying the sending of the 2011 conditional first-round draft pick to at least 2012. In the original trade on July 22, 2008, the Nets acquired a 2011 conditional first-round draft pick on July 22, 2008, from the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Marcus Williams.