Big Ten Basketball: 6 behind the scene takeaways from 2021-22 Media Day

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Big Ten Media Day in Indianapolis with my Sleepers Media counterpart, Carter Elliott (@CarterElliott__).  As first-timers at the event, we weren’t quite sure what we were getting ourselves into, but we went in with two goals: talk to as many players as possible, and leave with a better understanding of what Big Ten Basketball will look like this season.

It’s safe to say we accomplished both and had some fun doing it.  Over the weekend I reflected on everything we saw and heard over the course of the two-day event, and I came away with six key takeaways that you may not have gotten without being there behind the scenes.  Here’s what I learned.

1. Michigan vs. Illinois’ rivalry is real

If you paid attention at all last year to Big Ten basketball, you picked up on the fact that these two teams didn’t like each other very much.  It started with a hotly contested race for the regular-season conference championship, culminating in Michigan missing a few key games down the stretch amidst a flurry of non-basketball-related Covid-19 cases at the university.

Illinois (and specifically Brad Underwood) didn’t like that very much and felt that they should have been crowned co-champions by the conference.

Fast forward to last week, and the tension was very much still a thing.  Andre Curbelo stated without hesitation the player he’d most like to dunk on in the conference is Michigan’s Hunter Dickinson.

Dickinson did his part too, telling a room full of reporters that “Illinois fans are pretty annoying” and that “They just act like they’re some powerhouse in the Big Ten and they’re really not.”

The road to the conference title will go through these two teams yet again, and neither side is shying away from that fact.

Speaking of Hunter Dickinson….