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Nebraska guard Rollie Worster scores against Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner last season in Omaha. Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images

How About a New Conference for Nebraska Men’s Basketball?

Originally posted on Nebraska Cornhuskers on SI
By Chuck Bausman | Last updated Aug 4, 2025 10:22 AM ET

Nebraska men’s basketball fans, are you a little tired of the Big Ten? Had enough of Tom Izzo and Sparty dominating the league what seems like every year?

Purdue, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa have you down? Even Ohio State won three of four B1G titles from 2010-13. The Huskers have never won the Big Ten since joining the league for the 2011-12 season.

In the 14 seasons since they joined the Big Ten, the Huskers have had five winning seasons. They have had three winning seasons in conference play. Nebraska has had one winning conference season since 2018. The Huskers made the NCAA Tournament twice (2014, 2024), losing in the first round both times.

Last season, the Huskers were 7-13 in Big Ten play and 21-14 overall. Nebraska finished the season with a flurry, winning the College Basketball Crown in Las Vegas, 77-66, over Central Florida. The Huskers rallied to overcome a 14-point, second-half deficit. Before the final, Nebraska defeated Arizona State, Georgetown and Boise State. The Huskers’ smallest margin of victory was eight points.

Well, The Athletic has a hypothetical realignment of all 364 Division I basketball programs. In writer Jim Root’s mind, Nebraska is out of the Big Ten and into a new conference called the “Central,” a more geographically friendly grouping that probably is more competitive on the court, too, for the Huskers.

In his article, Root wrote about his “new,” realigned Big Ten: “The Big Ten has 10 teams again and no longer touches either coast. That result alone is worth this reorganization.”

Nebraska to the Central

The 11-team Central, categorized as a “Power-ish” Conference by Root, would consist of:

* Nebraska
* Butler
* Creighton
* Dayton
* DePaul
* Loyola Chicago
* Marquette
* Memphis
* Notre Dame
* Northwestern
* Saint Louis

The Central has a true Midwestern feel. The Nebraska-Creighton rivalry, already terrific, could grow more intense with home-and-home games every season. And there are serious basketball programs in there.

David Banks-Imagn Images

Butler made the Final Four in 2010 and 2011. The Bulldogs have become a true mid-major powerhouse.

Creighton made the Elite Eight twice, the last time in 2023. Loyola Chicago went on a magical NCAA Tournament run in 2018, making the Final Four.

Marquette won the national title in 1977 and made the Final Four in 2003 and 1974. Notre Dame made the Final Four in 1978.

“The Central makes a ton of sense in my mind: a Midwestern hotbed of programs that have been pulled toward the coasts in the current realignment world,” Root wrote about Nebraska’s “new” conference.

This is all fiction, of course, but we like the realignment. Immediately, the Huskers would be more competitive in the Central than they have been, for the most part, in the Big Ten.

Story behind the realignment

About the realignment, Root wrote: “What would the college basketball landscape look like if the sport were self-sufficient? I set out to reconstruct the entire layout of Division I with that hypothetical as my guiding principle.”

We thought Root might return Nebraska to the Big 12, which mostly resembles the traditional Big 12.

The ‘new’ Big Ten

Root includes the Big Ten under a “Power 5 conferences” headline.

Here is Root’s new, 10-team B1G:

* Illinois
* Indiana
* Iowa
* Michigan
* Michigan State
* Minnesota
* Ohio State
* Penn State
* Purdue
* Wisconsin

From the old-school, traditional Big Ten, Northwestern is missing. The Wildcats, a founding member of the conference in 1896, are now with Nebraska in the Central. Penn State, which joined the Big Ten in 1991, replaced Northwestern.

Root also used each conference’s Net Rating for the past five seasons per KenPom. “I used Net Ratings as a loose guide to ensure each league remained somewhat competitive as I swapped members,” Root wrote.

Root’s new Big Ten has a Net Rating of 17.4, behind the Big 12’s 19.0 and the SEC’s 17.8. The Central has a 12.2 Net Rating.

For real-life B1G teams, Root has Rutgers in the Big East. Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC are in a new/old Pac-12 (Bravo!), which is the old Pac-10 (without Colorado and Utah); and Maryland in the ACC, where the Terrapins were a member before joining the Big Ten.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming and reading. Sometimes speculation is fun.

This article first appeared on Nebraska Cornhuskers on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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