The preseason conversations about how good the Big Ten will be this basketball season went so many different directions.

There was the discussion about talent, with all five first-team all-conference players back.

There was the discussion about Final Four possibilities, with more preseason nationally ranked squads than ever before.

There was the discussion of whether this is the best of all time.

Jay Bilas summed it up succinctly.

“It’s the best league in the country this year with the depth of teams they have,” the ESPN college basketball analyst said.

The Big Ten has six teams in the preseason AP Top 25 for the first time, and that comes on the heels of eight of the league’s 11 teams winning 20 games or more last year, also a first.

Michigan State (No. 2), Purdue (7), Michigan (15), Ohio State (16), Illinois (23) and Minnesota (25) open the year in the national rankings. The Big East had five teams, the ACC four.

“They’re on the upswing of the cyclical nature of the six power conferences,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said. "They have a lot of quality players back and some outstanding newcomers.

“But there is a sense the Big Ten is the deepest conference in college basketball simply because there are six or seven teams that look like they are NCAA Tournament teams.”

Michigan State, the national runner-up after reaching its fifth Final Four under coach Tom Izzo, and Purdue are the league’s elite teams.

The only teams generally dismissed as having no shot at the NCAA Tournament are Indiana and Iowa.

The Big Ten had seven NCAA Tournament teams last year — Michigan State, Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Northwestern and Penn State reached the NIT, and the Nittany Lions won it.

“You have more balance,” said Jimmy Jackson, the former Ohio State star now with the Big Ten Network. "Northwestern is going to be more competitive, where I remember when you could chalk up a win against Northwestern.

“The bottom half of the league has gotten more competitive.”

Michigan State junior guard Kalin Lucas, the Big Ten Player of the Year as a sophomore, headlines the returning talent.

Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson, a junior from Franklin Central, is another of the first team all-conference players back, along with Michigan’s Manny Harris, Ohio State’s Evan Turner and Penn State’s Talor Battle. Purdue juniors Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore, Michigan State’s Raymar Morgan and Illinois’ Demetri McCamey are first-team candidates.

“The league is made up right now of some very, very good college players,” Fraschilla said.

“They may not necessarily be great NBA players, but the fact that they’ve been in the league two and three years is the reason the league is perceived to be so strong this year.”

Put up against history, though, this year doesn’t stand up to 1988-89, when Michigan won the championship and Illinois reached the Final Four.

“Stephen Bardo and I counted it one night,” Fraschilla said, referring to his fellow ESPN commentator and member of the “Flying Illini.”

“And I think it was 26 players that played in the league in the 1988-89 season that went on to play in the NBA. While the league is as deep as it’s been in a handful of years, I don’t think it compares to the league back then.”