ROSEMONT, Ill. – The question lingered around Big Ten media days long enough to get a driver’s license, become an adult and purchase alcoholic beverages.
Every year that the conference’s coaches and players met up to preview the season, be it in Minneapolis, New York City, Chicago or even Washington D.C., the year 2000 was inevitably invoked. It was then, in an NCAA Tournament increasingly in the rearview mirror, that a Big Ten school had last cut down the nets in a national championship game.
It was a drought that was older than YouTube and, eventually, every player suiting up in a league that expanded from 11 to 14 and finally 18 teams until one Big Ten team broke through. After eight attempts made by seven different schools, Michigancapped
one of the most dominating seasons in recent history and defeated Connecticut to bring a long-awaited trophy to the Big Ten.
How much the Wolverines breaking the league’s 26-year skid has impacted this year’s group of coaches depends on which one you ask.
“The standard of this program and what we’re striving for doesn’t change,” Ohio State coach Jake Diebler said Oct. 8 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. “I wasn’t, like, thrilled. But the Big Ten, to me, shouldn’t be defined on its depth and excellence based on who cut down the net because a college basketball tournament is so unique. We’ve had multiple teams over the last few years who have certainly been capable of being champions and we want our program to be one of those.”
The Buckeyes were one of the league’s eight runners-up in between Michigan State and Michigan bringing home titles. Ohio State fell to Florida in the 2007 title game as the Gators captured a second consecutive national title, victims of a program that managed to bring back essentially every critical player from the 2006 title team.
For years, though, Big Ten coaches said the lack of a title did not define the league. They pointed to the number of times the league had finished as runners-up, or how many Final Four appearances Big Ten schools had accumulated while still coming up short of the ultimate prize. Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg cited the league placing eight teams in the Sweet 16 in addition to two in the Final Four and Michigan’s title.
Now with a new title in the league’s trophy case, that sentiment about league depth was largely unchanged during the buildup to the 2026-27 season.
“I know what it takes to win a national championship and I know how good you’ve got to be but how lucky you’ve got to be,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “It’s not like we haven’t knocked on the door. To get through it, I don’t think that’s a statement. I think Illinois (in the Final Four) was a statement or us a few years ago or all the other teams that have made it to the Final Four.”
Izzo remains at the helm of the program that won that 2000 title while the most recent champion coach, Dusty May, has already left collegiate basketball for the NBA. In his place, the Wolverines elevated Mike Boynton to the role of head coach in July after spending two years on May’s staff as an assistant.
Now it’s his job to try and guide the Wolverines to a repeat. Boynton described it as a privilege more than pressure.
“I don’t know if I’ve thought about it in a holistic Big Ten standpoint,” he said. “I’ve got a great opportunity and responsibility to coach the University of Michigan basketball part of the Big Ten I don’t know if I think about the legacy piece. I think about how do I put this team in the best position to be the best version of ourselves when we get there.”
That’s the question that each coach, in some fashion, spent a portion of media day answering. Talk of titles and legacies didn’t carry nearly as much oxygen as the ongoing conversations about overall team growth, preseason expectations and the overall state of the sport.
Every team wants to get to where Michigan did. The reality is that just one can, and seeing the rival Wolverines do it added more fuel to Diebler’s thoughts.
“You know how I feel about the rivalry,” he said. “We’re not going to sit here and pretend like that’s not a factor. It is. It’s one of the best rivalries in all of sports in any arena. We’re always pushing, but our focus is on us internally to keep driving this thing up.”
Izzo, too, stopped short of giving Michigan its flowers.
“I think it angered most of our fans,” he said.
Ohio State men's basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social, on Instagram at @cdadamjardyor on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Did Michigan's basketball title finally change the Big Ten narrative?
