The Big Ten on Thursday held its basketball media day in DC, the latest sign that the “'footprint' of the Big Ten has changed significantly," according to Charboneau & Hawkins of the DETROIT NEWS. The conference's men's basketball tournament will be at Verizon Center this March, and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said, "We said a couple years ago when Maryland formally joined the Big Ten we wanted to live in this corridor. Before they came in officially on July 1, 2014, we selected Washington, D.C., as a site for our 2017 basketball tournament. So I think that our actions are aligned with our plan." He added the conference has been "really active" about moving more of its focus east. Delany: "We've been very conscious about living here. As you know, we've established an office in New York City. ... It's just the beginning of what we think is going to be a tremendous thing." Charboneau & Hawkins note after two years on the east coast -- the '18 event is slated for MSG -- the conference tournament "returns to a Chicago-Indianapolis rotation for the next four years, but odds are it’s coming back East at some point." Delany: "The presumption is we're going to be back here. We're going to build here. We expect to have success here, and this is part of the Big Ten footprint. … But we've got fully 20 percent of our alumni base living out here" (DETROIT NEWS, 10/14).
