The history behind the Big Ten’s uniquely deep bench of men’s basketball rivalries

This week, The Athletic ranked the top 50 rivalries in men’s college basketball. You can make your own picks in our reader survey.

Among the Big Ten’s old guard, the definition of what does — and doesn’t — count as a men’s basketball rivalry is ambiguous. The 10 longstanding programs all have historical friction with one another. But the term “rivalry,” frankly, is fluid.

Until the league began expanding, starting with Penn State in 1992-93, its basketball schedule consisted of a double round-robin, with each team playing everyone else once at home. Nearly all of the programs emphasized basketball and hired great coaches. Charismatic leaders such as Bob Knight, Gene Keady, Lou Henson, Lute Olson and Jud Heathcote commanded the spotlight, sparred with one another and drew flocks of fans to their arenas. The Big Ten led the nation in average men’s basketball attendance from 1977 until 2025, when the SEC surpassed it. Winning on the road is difficult in every league, but it’s doubly the case throughout the old Big Ten. Those factors led to great games with feuds to match.

Every Big Ten program has several opponents it could consider rivals, though most reserve that term for a select few teams in the traditional sense. However, over a century, many members of the Big Ten’s old guard have played so many significant games against one another that their series deserve special mention. Let’s call them practical rivals.

Take Illinois, for example. Nearly every major program within a four-hour radius of Champaign seemingly has a practical rivalry with the Illini. To dig a bit into what Illinois considers its signature rivalries, I exchanged messages with Loren Tate, who has covered the Illini and the Big Ten since the 1950s.

“Not Missouri, not anymore,” said Tate, who still hosts a sports radio show and writes a weekly column at age 94. “It was Indiana for most of a century. I would say Iowa and Michigan and MSU … should include Purdue.

“There is no clear answer,” Tate continued. “For me, it was Indiana during the Knight era and before, then Iowa after the Deon (Thomas) problem.”

Illinois’ rivalry predicament is a common one throughout the pre-expansion Big Ten. Sure, Indiana-Purdue and Michigan-Michigan State are nationally relevant, and Iowa-Illinois has had its explosive moments, Thomas’ recruitment in the late 1980s first among them. But after those three, the rest are cyclical. The Big Ten’s history and depth provided the biggest challenge when compiling The Athletic’s top 50 college basketball rivalries. The final list included eight from the league’s old guard but left out twice as many with a case for inclusion.

*USC and UCLA joined the Big Ten in 2024.

Before the NCAA Tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975, the Big Ten’s biggest roadblock to national success was itself. Only one team could qualify from each conference, and that helped the practical rivalries take off. In 1968, Michigan shocked first-place Iowa with a 71-70 win in the season finale to send the Hawkeyes to a one-game playoff with Ohio State for the first time in league history.

With an NCAA bid at stake and a blizzard outside, the teams met in West Lafayette, Ind., and the Buckeyes prevailed 85-81. Ohio State ultimately reached the Final Four. Iowa stayed home. Fast-forward 58 years, and Iowa’s win against Ohio State last week has the Hawkeyes leading the all-time series 87-86. There’s a good chance they’ll meet again in the Big Ten tournament, where the Buckeyes could even the ledger once again.

Is it a rivalry? Maybe.

The same goes for Michigan’s series with Indiana. They, too, played a one-game playoff to decide the league’s NCAA Tournament representative, in 1973. After the tournament expanded, they met for the 1976 NCAA championship, which the Hoosiers won 86-68. The teams have faced off 24 times as Top 25 foes. Is it a rivalry or merely a great series? It depends.

Michigan and Illinois have played eight top-10 matchups — the most recent a week ago — and 10 contests that needed overtime. They also capped the greatest year in Big Ten men’s basketball history with a Final Four classic.

Four conference representatives entered the 1989 NCAA Tournament with championship aspirations. Knight’s Hoosiers won the league outright, just a game ahead of the Flyin’ Illini. Uber-talented Michigan sat third in the standings and Iowa, the preseason No. 1, was fourth. The Hawkeyes dropped out in the second round after a double-overtime loss to NC State, while Indiana fell to eventual runner-up Seton Hall in the Sweet 16. Illinois and Michigan met in the Final Four.

The Illini had won their regular-season matchups by a combined 28 points, but the Wolverines held their own under the direction of interim coach Steve Fisher, and Sean Higgins’ rebound and putback with one second left gave Michigan an 83-81 upset win. The Wolverines won the NCAA title two days later.

So is Michigan-Illinois a true rivalry, or is its animosity dependent on timing?

Purdue and Michigan State have played 18 ranked-on-ranked battles against one another, and each has won or shared four Big Ten titles since 2017. The Spartans have a similar rich history with Indiana and Illinois, as do the Boilermakers with Ohio State, Michigan and Iowa.

In 1970, Purdue and Iowa played the most famous regular-season game in Big Ten history. The Hawkeyes, who averaged a still-standing Big Ten record of 102.9 points per game, traded baskets with Boilers legend Rick Mount, who scored a still-standing Big Ten record 61 points. Had Mount played with the 3-point line, estimates have him scoring 78 points. Instead, the Hawkeyes prevailed 108-107. In 2016, Purdue welcomed Mount back to be honored after a decades-long estrangement during a game against Iowa. The Boilers suffered the largest blown lead in school history, 19 points, in a 70-63 loss. But Purdue just recently notched its 100th win against the Hawkeyes en route to a season sweep.

Again, are these black-and-gold foes rivals?

Some of the league’s border and in-state series are similarly difficult to evaluate. Minnesota and Wisconsin are fierce rivals in every sport, and the Badgers hold a 112-104 advantage on the hardwood after this year. But Wisconsin didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament from 1947 until 1997, then became one of the sport’s most consistent high-level programs. For much of this century, the Badgers have moved beyond the Gophers competitively, albeit not emotionally. Minnesota-Iowa and Illinois-Northwestern carry importance but not as much juice as their football meetings.

Perhaps the most illustrative example of the Big Ten’s complicated relationships can be found in Bloomington, Ind., now the center of the college football universe. Up until this year, basketball was king at Indiana, and its importance has hardly faded. Many Big Ten programs and fan bases still circle the Hoosiers as a favorite team to beat.

The Hoosiers have a long history with Iowa, losing seven times as a top-six squad in matchups with both sides ranked. And as in football the last two seasons, Indiana’s battles with Ohio State are about as close to a rivalry as possible without calling it one. The programs share a connection to Knight, who played for the Buckeyes and coached the Hoosiers to three national titles. Each team has lost three times to the other while ranked in the top five.

Perhaps none of these series qualify for rivalry status, but they enrich the Big Ten’s depth and history unlike that of any other conference. Just watch a Purdue-Michigan State game at Mackey Arena or Illinois-Michigan at the State Farm Center. There’s no way you can tell the difference.