A list of the Big Ten’s most dominant men’s basketball champions of the past 50 years looks different now than it would have a year ago.
This season marks 50 years since the last time a Big Ten team went undefeated in league play. Michigan coach Dusty May was born a few months after Indiana beat Michigan to complete a 32-0 season and win the 1976 national championship. A strong case can be made that May’s Michigan team, which finished 19-1 in league play, is the Big Ten’s most dominant champion since those 1976 Hoosiers.
The Wolverines beat five top 10 teams, went undefeated on the road in conference play and won 15 of their 20 league games by double digits. They also conquered more territory than any of Bob Knight’s teams ever did, with the Big Ten now stretching from New Jersey to California.
“Now the leagues are so big, it’s almost as if you’re winning the Big Ten and the Pac-10 in the same year,” May said.
Is it harder to win a bigger league? All things being equal, sheer probability would say, yes. Of course, not all things are equal in a conference of 18 college basketball teams, as Michigan demonstrated. Some coaches would say it’s harder to face the same teams that know your tendencies inside and out. Others would say it’s harder to deal with the travel and the diverse matchups that the expanded Big Ten presents.
There are trade-offs in both directions, but no one can say Michigan benefited from an easy path. The Wolverines went 5-0 against Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue and Nebraska, four teams in the top 12 of the KenPom rankings.
“The league not only has a lot of teams now, but the elite teams are elite,” said Bruce Weber, a Big Ten Network analyst and the former coach at Illinois and Kansas State. “You’ve got five possible top four seeds. It’s not like (Michigan) did 19 wins in a year when they had average teams. They’re a special group.”
Weber’s 2005 Illinois team came as close as any since Indiana to completing an undefeated season. The Illini were a few minutes away from going 16-0 in the Big Ten before Ohio State rallied for a 65-64 upset in the final game of the regular season.
That Illinois team, which lost to North Carolina in the national championship game to finish 37-2, has a place among the most dominant Big Ten champions of the past half-century, as do great teams from Michigan State, Indiana and Purdue. That list now has to make room for Michigan.
“To have the big conference, to have to go through the travels and go out west, it’s very impressive,” Weber said. “It puts them in elite company in the history of the Big Ten.”
Here’s our subjective ranking of the 10 most dominant Big Ten champions of the past 50 years, based solely on how they performed in the Big Ten regular season.
10. 1981 Indiana (26-9, 14-4)
This Indiana team, led by sophomore Isiah Thomas, was 7-5 after losing to Clemson and Texas-Pan American in the Rainbow Classic, then dropped Big Ten games to Michigan and Iowa early in the conference schedule.
However, the Hoosiers caught fire, winning 11 of their final 13 Big Ten games to finish one game in front of Iowa for the Big Ten title.
After beating North Carolina in the national championship game, Knight said this Indiana team “has matured more than any I have seen.”
9. 2024 Purdue (34-5, 17-3)
Matt Painter’s best team marched through the Big Ten and advanced all the way to the national championship game against UConn.
The lineup of Zach Edey, Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn will be remembered as the one that put to rest the NCAA Tournament demons for the Boilermakers, who lost to Fairleigh Dickinson the previous year as a No. 1-seeded team.
With Edey as the national player of the year, the Boilermakers won the Big Ten by three games over second-place Illinois.
8. 2007 Ohio State (35-4, 15-1)
In the second-to-last game of the conference season, No. 2 Ohio State beat No. 1 Wisconsin 49-48 on Mike Conley’s shot with 3.9 seconds remaining.
That victory clinched back-to-back Big Ten championships for the Buckeyes, who went on to face Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Billy Donovan’s Florida squad in the national championship game.
There are some great Ohio State teams to choose from, including the 2011 squad that went 34-3 with Jared Sullinger and an incredible freshman class. The freshman duo of Conley and Greg Oden gives this team the edge.
7. 2015 Wisconsin (36-4, 16-2)
This was the Frank Kaminsky-Sam Dekker team that faced Duke in the national championship game in Bo Ryan’s final full season in Madison.
Coming off a Final Four the previous season, the Badgers dropped an early game to last-place Rutgers. Still, they rolled through the rest of the Big Ten schedule, won both the regular season and conference tournament titles and beat previously undefeated Kentucky in the Final Four in a season that made Big Ten fans proud.
6. 1987 Indiana (30-4, 15-3)
This was a loaded season in the Big Ten, with four teams — Indiana, Purdue, Illinois and Iowa — that were ranked in the top five at various points.
The Hoosiers, led by Big Ten player of the year Steve Alford, started 14-1 in the Big Ten, lost back-to-back games to Purdue and Illinois, then beat Ohio State to share the Big Ten regular-season title with the Boilermakers.
Indiana went on to beat Syracuse in the national title game on a famous shot by Keith Smart to give Knight his third and final national championship.
5. 1999 Michigan State (33-5, 15-1)
This was the season before the Spartans delivered Tom Izzo his only national championship.
As juniors, Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson led the Spartans on a 22-game winning streak that spanned the final 15 games of the Big Ten season, three games in the conference tournament and four wins in the NCAA Tournament before a loss to Duke in the Final Four.
Tom Izzo led Michigan State to the Big Ten’s most recent men’s basketball national title in 2000. (Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images)
4. 2000 Michigan State (32-7, 13-3)
The Spartans, carrying huge expectations after the previous year’s Final Four run, lost to Wright State in their final nonconference game to start 9-4. They also lost three games in a balanced Big Ten. Even if their record isn’t as glossy as other teams on this list, the 2000 Spartans had the No. 1 offense and No. 1 defense in the Big Ten. They backed it up with their magical run through the NCAA Tournament, capped by a victory against Florida in the national title game.
3. 2005 Illinois (37-2, 15-1)
Weber took over a talented roster at Illinois after Bill Self left for Kansas and, in his second year, led the Illini to an unforgettable season. The lineup of Dee Brown, Deron Williams and Luther Head led Illinois to a 29-0 start before the last-second loss to Ohio State to close the regular season.
Illinois didn’t lose again until the national championship game, a 75-70 loss to Sean May-led North Carolina.
“Really, if you look at it, we’re two possessions from perfection,” Weber said.
2. 1993 Indiana (31-4, 17-1)
The official Big Ten standings show Michigan at 0-3 because its wins were vacated, but this was the year that Indiana beat the Fab Five twice in a pair of one-point wins: 76-75 in Ann Arbor and 93-92 in Bloomington. The Hoosiers also had a pair of top 10 wins against Iowa and a sweep of Purdue, which was ranked in the top 15.
This Indiana team, which lost to Kansas in the Elite Eight, didn’t have the NCAA Tournament glory of other Indiana squads. Still, the Hoosiers’ Big Ten season was remarkable, in part because of the other great teams and players the Hoosiers had to face.
1. 2026 Michigan (29-2, 19-1)
Recency bias? Perhaps. If the Wolverines don’t go on to win the national championship, or at least make the Final Four, it’s possible their regular season will look different in retrospect.
The Wolverines’ sustained dominance makes it difficult to place them anywhere but No. 1, and the advanced stats back it up. In conference play, they lost only to current No. 23 Wisconsin by three. They played their best in the biggest games, with double-digit road victories against Michigan State, Purdue and Illinois.