Eight Big Ten men’s basketball players were named to the 2011-12 Naismith Trophy Preseason Watch List, released Monday. The candidates are the same as the ones that made the Wooden Award Watch List, minus Minnesota’s Trevor Mbakwe. See all the stars who made the cut for the award handed out annually to the men’s player of the year in this post.

The Big Ten Trophy Tracker is coming into sharper focus as the season hits the final stretch. With only three week left in the season, there’s a new player on top of Graham-George Offensive Player of the Year checklist. And it’s a big, physical running back from the Legends Division who just may carry his team to the Big Ten title game.

At 6:30 ET on the Big Ten Pulse, Rick, Rack and Timmy D discuss the wild weekend in the Legends Division, what with Northwestern upsetting Nebraska and Iowa fending off Michigan. Michigan State men’s hoops coach Tom Izzo will join the show to talk about his history of scheduling tough opponents and playing aboard an aircraft carrier Friday. Also, our crew will debate who had the better 81-yard touchdown: Braxton Miller (watch and rate the play!) or Jeremy Ebert (watch and rate the play!)?

On Monday’s Big Ten Breakdown, at 7 p.m. ET, Howard Griffith breaks down the offensive line’s role in Wisconsin RB Montee Ball‘s success and Chris Martin shows us how Iowa’s defense shut down Denard Robinson and Michigan. The crew also will take a look at MarQueis Gray‘s progression the last couple of weeks, plus Northwestern’s do-it-all star Kain Colter will join us to talk about his team’s upset win at Nebraska.

BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart takes live questions each Monday at noon ET right here, and he’ll be joined by BTN.com web editor Brent Yarina, too. Dienhart is covering Big Ten football for BTN.com this season and will eventually move into men’s hoops, too. Dienhart posts Big Ten articles all week and can be found on Twitter (@BTNTomDienhart) as well. You can also as a question by using #AskBTN on Twitter. Join the live chat now or at noon ET, then come back each Monday for the rest of the season. We’ll also post the text of his chat on BTN.com later today.