NCAA Basketball: Top 6 rivalries that were ruined by realignment

In the past 12 or so years, a major storyline in college athletics has been realignment involving conferences. It’s been a thing that has occurred for nearly 100 years with teams leaving now-defunct conferences to better spots either for location or revenue purposes. While football has been the major catalyst for the moves, it’s had an obvious impact on NCAA Basketball as well.

In the past couple of years, a new set of moves will be made involving prominent programs. Texas and Oklahoma are planning on leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. In response, the Big 12 will be adding BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston.

Even if you exclude the power conferences, there’s a lot of future movement that NCAA Basketball will bear the brunt of. Loyola-Chicago will be leaving the Missouri Valley Conference for the Atlantic 10, with Belmont, Murray State, and Illinois-Chicago reportedly will be the replacements for the Ramblers.

Conferences such as the WAC, Ohio Valley, SoCon, Colonial Athletic, and America East will be impacted by realignment for next season, leaving current “rivalries” and hopefully establishing new ones for the future. But as fans that have been used to spirited competitive matchups between specific teams over the years, it stings that we might not see some of these games again for a long time.

NCAA basketball rivalries have been affected by realignment in the past

That’s already happened before, with some historically good rivalries being cut short due to one program leaving a conference. Some have been saved with scheduled series in the non-conference but it does feel different when the game happens in November and December instead of January-February when NCAA Basketball gets the most attention.

Here are the six biggest rivalries that have been most impacted by realignment, including some honorable mentions to get started.

Ruined NCAA basketball rivalry No. 6 – Pittsburgh Panthers vs Duquesne Dukes

• Pitt leads all-time series, 55-32
• Last meeting date: 2018 (Pitt won, 74-53)
• Biggest margin of victory: 59 points ( Pitt won, 91-32 in 1974)
• Longest win streak: 15 by Pittsburgh (2001-15)

Just a couple of miles separates these two schools so there always has been some tension between the teams and fanbases whenever they met. And up until 1982, the games were fairly evenly matched. They spent several years together in the Eastern Athletic Association (EAA) and even met in the NIT postseason Tournament in 1980.

But everything changed for both programs in 1982 when the EAA dissolved and the eight programs went to different conferences. Duquesne ended up in the Atlantic 10 and Pittsburgh went to the Big East. That was the start of both programs going in opposite directions in the decades to follow.

The Dukes have yet to make the NCAA Tournament (last appearance in 1977), and just six winning seasons altogether. Meanwhile, the Panthers have made the Big Dance 19 times since 1982, while spending several seasons in the top-5 of the national rankings.

That level of disparity represents itself in the last few decades of games between the teams. In the past 35 meetings, Pittsburgh has won 32 of them and as the program grew in the Big East, the talent advantage only became more apparent. As has the new-age thinking of bigger programs not wanting to play smaller schools at their spot has made their rivalry” untenable on the Panthers side. Of course, they themselves struggled mightily as of late, which included a loss in 2016 to the Dukes.

These teams haven’t played since 2018 and there currently aren’t any plans to do so. And it’s unfortunate, as this was a genuine rivalry of dislike between the schools and fanbases but the move in 1982 changed everything to get to this point.