For those few remaining followers of collegiate athletics who still don’t believe you can “buy” championships in the new era of college sports, we offer up the 2025-‘26 resume of the uber-wealthy Big Ten Conference. Remember, the “B1G” has an annual collective income of a billion dollars per year; that’s billion with a B. Member schools – and there are now 18 of them – are provided roughly $75 – $90 million each for an academic year.
The B1G is very clearly the Goliath of collegiate sports. Let’s check the leaderboard:
Football national champion: Indiana
Men’s basketball national champion: Michigan (with 10 B1G teams in the Sweet 16 and two in the Final Four)
Women’s basketball national champion: UCLA
Men’s brestling national champion: Penn State
Current No. 1 team in baseball: UCLA
Which brings us to men’s hockey. Both preseason No. 1 Michigan and No. 3 Michigan State got top seeds in regional play, with Wisconsin and Penn State getting No. 3 seeds in the final 16. The powerful Wolverines advanced to the Frozen Four as the top seed. And to make things even more notable, the upstart Badgers also got in after knocking off the Spartans, making it a pair of B1G teams in the final four.
When the first puck dropped, North Dakota was supposed to take out the Badgers. Didn’t happen. The Badgers won 2-1 and advanced to the national title game. Everything pointed to them meeting their B1G rival Wolverines for yet another national championship, meaning yet another notch on the belt for the conference.
Then along came David.
David Carle’s fourth-ranked Denver University Pioneers weren’t armed with a slingshot, but they did have an amazing freshman goaltender named Johnny Hicks and an unlikely slapshot from defenseman Kent Anderson.
Much like the character in biblical lore, Denver lulled the heavily favored Wolverines to sleep with the classic rope-a-dope ploy. While being outshot by an astonishing 2-to-1 margin (52-26), the Pioneers relied on the sensational play of Hicks, who came into the game with a nation-leading 1.12 goals-against average and .958 save percentage. All he did was make 49 saves and preserve his unbeaten (16-0-1) freshman campaign. Finally, after being stuck in a 3-3 tie late into the second overtime, Anderson smacked one past Michigan goalie Jack Ivankovic, delivering the slapshot heard all over college sports.
The Pioneers capped it off by beating the other B1G bully, Wisconsin, 2-1 two days later – also after being outshot by that same 2-to-1 margin – to capture the school’s 11th national title, and their third in the past four seasons.
All things considered, including the vastly new landscape of college sports, this one has to be the most impressive title of them all.
Considering DU has more hockey titles and more sustained success in the sport than even mighty Michigan, maybe this wasn’t a surprise? Perhaps, but if you consider the big picture in college sports right now, these wins over the Wolverines and the Badgers are pretty much the current equivalent of, say, Montana State – a lower-level powerhouse – knocking off Alabama and Notre Dame to win the College Football Playoff.
While DU has a hockey history that’s second to none, their last title two seasons ago came just as the surge of Name, Image and Likeness payments to college athletes was beginning to rival NFL salaries. Yes, even in a sport as niche as college hockey, student athletes can now earn big cash. Especially if you’re playing in the B1G, where the dollars flow the most freely.
How much NIL money do we think Carle’s players were making? And in comparison with the Michigan players? Two Wolverines have already signed professional contracts, while 13 others have been drafted by NHL teams.
Yes, this was David vs. Goliath. And David won.
Carle’s just 36 year sold, and has now won more than 200 games and three national championships in his eight years at the helm of the Pioneers. To call him one of the game’s all-time greats already might be a touch premature… or maybe not. The question now is how long can DU hold on to their David, especially when the Goliaths start calling.
