Commissioner Tony Petitti sees no reason to make the Big Ten any bigger right now.
Petitti said Thursday at Big Ten basketball media days in Chicago there are no active talks or plans regarding expansion of the conference as rumors swirl about interest from LSU and Miami, among others.
There are “absolutely no discussions taking place around expansion,” Petitti said, with his explicit focus on helping current conference membership adjust to the evolving college landscape.
“This conference has got 18 strong members,” Petitti said. “We’re focused on that. There’s lots of things that we think we can do inside the conference to continue to grow the position that we have with the 18 members.”
The conference expanded most recently in 2024, plucking Pac-12 powers Oregon, UCLA, Southern California and Washington.
Petitti said the Big Ten was supportive of the Protect College Sports Act, which provides a path toward helping conferences be in lockstep on wide-reaching realms such as eligibility limits, transfer rules and universal state adherence to existing legislation.
“The bill isn’t going to stop every possible thing,” he said. “That’s not what it’s intended to do. In areas like eligibility, transfer, legislating litigation around NIL, states trying to come over the top of the system, and the settlement, this will clean all that up, and so that’s really critical.”
–Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo knows all about the challenges of winning in the Big Ten, which houses 2026 Final Four teams and a heavily remodeled national champion in Ann Arbor. Michigan had three first-round NBA draft picks and head coach Dusty May “got drafted first,” as Boynton put it Thursday, after cutting down the nets in Indianapolis.
That Final Four also included Illinois. The Illini start the season with several new faces, too. Top freshman Keaton Wagler was a lottery pick of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Izzo said he’s been around long enough to know it’s not the names and the faces but the places that will matter once conference play begins.
“The Big Ten is going to be damn good. Michigan, Illinois, UCLA and USC have a lot of talent,” he said. “I’m leaving others out. I think Maryland will be far improved. But what isn’t appreciated is our home buildings. Every game is an event. You can’t rest in this league.”
Michigan will be in the hands of Mike Boynton Jr., who replaced May upon his departure for the Dallas Mavericks.
Not everything is new for the Wolverines. Guards Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney lead the cast of familiar faces hoping to put the defending champions in position to play in Detroit — site of the 2027 Final Four — at season’s end.
Boynton, an assistant under May, said his former boss is “the best I’ve ever been around just in terms of emotional IQ.”
“His ability to surround himself with high-quality, competent people and give them the vision to execute. The biggest part I’ve tried to replicate,” Boynton said, “is just having the right people in the room.”
— Less than 48 hours before Thursday’s media-day appearance, Tony Stubblefield was an assistant on Dana Altman’s Oregon staff. Suddenly, Stubblefield was thrust into the spotlight at Big Ten media days as the interim head coach at Oregon following Altman’s retirement announcement Wednesday.
That doesn’t mean Altman’s decision — or its timing — took Stubblefield by surprise.
“Not totally surprised,” Stubblefield said. “We had a challenging year last year… I think that took a lot out of him.”
Stubblefield was the head coach at DePaul from 2021-24, bookended by stints on the Ducks’ staff. He was familiar with Eugene as far back as 2010.
Stubblefield inherits a program that reached the NCAA Tournament’s second round in 2024 and 2025 but missed the event in three of the past five seasons. Last season was Oregon’s first sub-.500 finish under Altman (12-20).
“Obviously it’s a lot for these young men,” Stubblefield said on Big Ten Network. “They came there to play for Dana Altman, to play at the University of Oregon. What I told them, we’ve got to stay more connected now. We’ve got to be tight. … This is a very good group. We’ve had very good leadership with (seniors) Sean Stewart, Fred Payne, Andrew Meadow. And I told those guys we’ve gotta be tighter than ever.”
— Rutgers also faces a coaching transition, with longtime head coach Steve Pikiell undergoing cancer treatment and associate head coach Brandin Knight temporarily directing the program.
Knight represented the Scarlet Knights in Chicago and said the longtime head coach was guiding him from the background.
“He’s involved in my day-to-day, and I’m always checking on him from a standpoint of what he sees, what he’s thinking, what I should be worried or concerned about,” said Knight, who has never served as a head coach. “And then he takes some of the pressure off of myself just because he’s still trying to be there as much as he can at every waking moment.
“So at times we have to tell him — yesterday he apologized to the staff for not being there for us and being able to do more. And it’s just kind of a testament to who he is as a person and just as a supporter of us.”
–Michigan was far from the only Big Ten success story last March and April. The league had more participants in the Final Four (two), Elite Eight (four) and Sweet 16 (six) than any other conference.
Ninth-seeded Iowa bested fourth-seeded Nebraska in a Sweet 16 Battle of the Corn. The Hawkeyes’ reward under then-first-year coach Ben McCollum was to go up against a veteran Illinois team in the Elite Eight, and Brad Underwood guided the Fighting Illini to their first Final Four since 2005.
Illinois returns several key contributors, bringing heightened expectations that Underwood believes his team should embrace.
“(We’re) not running from it. We’re accepting the fact that people think we’re pretty good, OK?” Underwood said. “We worked for that, we deserve that. Handle the ups and the downs. …
“This group hasn’t done anything. Last year’s team did. Keaton Wagler’s not coming back through the door… Let’s make our own identity, and let’s make it a better one. The only way we know to do that is work.”
For the first time in a long time, McCollum will be without point guard Bennett Stirtz, whom he coached from Division II Northwest Missouri State to Drake to Iowa. The coach told Big Ten Network he’d need a by-committee approach to replace the do-everything Stirtz, who’s now in the NBA.
“I do think we’ll play more players,” he said. “I think you have to be careful with that, though, that you don’t just play guys because you have them. You need to just play harder,” McCollum said.
–Field Level Media
