PHOENIX - Brett Yormark didn’t come to Big 12 Basketball Media Days looking to play it safe.
The Big 12 commissioner leaned into the league’s latest haul on Tuesday, calling it the nation’s top basketball conference and making the case that its reach now stretches well beyond the college game. Yormark said, “The Big 12 remains the second-best basketball league behind only the NBA,” and added, “I think I said that last year, but I’m going to say it again this year.”
He backed up the claim with numbers that were hard to ignore. Yormark pointed to “a conference-record nine first-round NBA draft selections, four in the top 10, including the top two overall picks.” That top pair in the 2026 NBA draft came from the Big 12, with BYU’s AJ Dybantsa going No. 1 to the Washington Wizards and Kansas guard Darryn Peterson going No. 2 to the Utah Jazz.
The women’s side gave Yormark more fuel. He cited the 2026 WNBA draft, which featured five Big 12 selections, including No. 2 pick Olivia Miles out of Texas Christian to the Minnesota Lynx. Miles later became the unanimous WNBA Rookie of the Year.
The conference is also folding more of itself into one showcase. This year’s media days brought men’s and women’s programs together in an effort to highlight the league’s depth across two days and 16 institutions.
On Tuesday, athletes and coaches from Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati, Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Texas Tech and Utah were on hand. Wednesday featured Arizona, BYU, Central Florida, Houston, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU and West Virginia.
Yormark also looked ahead, noting that 11 of the top-ranked 40 recruits have committed to Big 12 programs, including the nation’s top two men’s basketball players. “I don’t think there’s a better time to be part of the Big 12 than right now,” Yormark said.
“We have an incredible runway ahead of us. Love the cohesion amongst the 16.”
Arizona State’s new men’s coach, Randy Bennett, was one of three new men’s coaches Yormark welcomed to the league. Bennett spent 25 years at St. Mary’s before taking the Sun Devils job, and for him, the move carried a personal pull that never really went away.
“I grew up in Mesa, which is 10 minutes away from Arizona State University,” said Bennett, who played at Westwood High and Mesa Community College, where his father Tom coached. “I grew up as a Sun Devil.
That’s who I rooted for. I knew which team in the state that I was rooting for the whole time.”
Bennett’s blueprint in Tempe starts with the same ingredients that defined his St. Mary’s teams: defense, rebounding and pace. That carries over through players like guard Dillan Shaw, who followed Bennett from the Gaels and has family ties to ASU through his uncle, former Sun Devils power forward Mike Batiste.
Shaw said the transition is about carrying that identity forward. “We’re trying to establish probably more of a defensive mindset,” Shaw said.
“Same thing we carry over from St. Mary’s: defense and rebounding.
We’re looking to build off of that - see where we can go from there.”
Bennett said having two of the team’s three captains come from St. Mary’s should help the Sun Devils bridge the gap between old and new.
“I’m glad that Dillan and Paulius are part of that because I’ve coached them, we’ve coached them,” Bennett said. “They know our program.
They know what we’re trying to be. As a coach, you can only do so much.
Your players got to buy in.”
On the women’s side, Molly Miller’s first season at Arizona State started fast and ended in the NCAA Tournament. The Sun Devils opened 15-0 before falling in the First Four, and the energy around the program has carried over into year two.
Miller has leaned into her “benergy” idea - bench-energy - as a way to keep everyone engaged. She said, “When you can have the fans buy into what we’re doing on both ends, they’re loving to see them play hard,” Miller said.
“You get this holistic approach to the game. You have fans, players, coaches.
There’s this energy around what we’re doing at Arizona State. It’s more than women’s basketball.”
Leadership remains central for Miller, too, but this season she has more experienced players to help carry it. Forward McKinna Brackens, now in her second year with the Sun Devils after transferring from UNLV, took a major leap last season. Her scoring rose from 6.8 points per game to 14.4, her rebounding climbed from 4.5 to 6.4, and she turned in a career-high 31-point game.
That growth has Brackens looking beyond production. She is now focused on becoming more vocal and helping set the tone off the court as well. She knows what Miller wants from the team, and she is eager to take on that role.