The Big Ten released its preseason awards on Wednesday afternoon, naming Maryland's Melo Trimble preseason player of the year.
Trimble, who averaged 16.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game, was a unanimous choice for the preseason All-Big Ten team along with Michigan State's Denzel Valentine, Purdue's A.J. Hammons, and Wisconsin's Nigel Hayes.
Joining that group of players on the preseason All-Big Ten team are Iowa's Jarrod Uthoff, Maryland's Jake Layman, Wisconsin's Bronson Koenig, Indiana's James Blackmon Jr. and Yogi Ferrell, and Michigan's Caris LeVert.
Most of the members on this team have been named to the All-Big Ten teams before. Ferrell was named to both the coaches' and media's first team last year. Trimble was first team on the media's poll and the second team on the coaches' poll. Hammons was on the second team of both ballots. Hayes and Valentine were on the third team from both the media and coaches. Layman made the third team by the media, and Uthoff made it on the third team of the coaches. LeVert made the second team back in 2014.
Nine of the 10 players in this group featured in CBSSports' Top 100 (and one) players in college basketball for 2015-16. Trimble was the highest-rated player at No. 7. The second-highest was Hayes at No. 12, with Denzel Valentine, Caris LeVert and Yogi Ferrell also featured in the top 20. Jarrod Uthoff is the only player not featured in the Top 100 (and one).
>>SMU Players To Issue Statement To NCAA
The NCAA announced last month that SMU's men's basketball program will, among other things, not be allowed to compete this postseason because of rules violations uncovered during an investigation. The school subsequently stated it will not appeal the postseason ban, meaning the players will not participate in the 2016 NCAA Tournament even if they win every game between now and then, and seniors like Nic Moore and Markus Kennedy are essentially guaranteed to never play in the NCAA Tournament again.
SMU's players have mostly refrained from commenting since the announcements.
But the players issued a statement Wednesday exclusively to CBS Sports.
Part of the statement reads as follows:
We, the student-athlete members of the SMU Basketball family, wish to express our profound disappointment and vehement disagreement with the sanctions levied upon us as student-athletes, and with the conclusions drawn by the NCAA Committee on Infractions about our men's basketball program and our coach, Larry Brown. We believe the NCAA exercised questionable judgment in punishing innocent people, and we strongly disagree that a dedicated group of blameless, amateur athletes should bear the overwhelming weight of the consequences in this case. We also wish to make known that the NCAA's conclusion that the SMU Men's Basketball program is not compliant with NCAA rules is simply incorrect.
