Gavitt Tipoff Games
The Gavitt Tipoff Games were an annual eight-game NCAA Division I men's college basketball series played between the Big Ten Conference and the Big East Conference early in the season. The games were played annually from 2015 through 2023 except in 2020, when they were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the 2021–2024 NCAA conference realignment, the final year of the series was 2023.
| Conference | Big Ten Conference Big East Conference |
|---|---|
| League | NCAA Division I |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Ceased | 2023 |
| Sports fielded | |
| Last champion(s) | Big Ten Conference |
| Most titles | Big Ten Conference (3) |
| TV partner(s) | FS1 Big Ten Network ESPN2/ESPNU (2015) |
The Gavitt Tipoff Games were played on the home courts of participating schools, with four hosted by Big Ten schools and four hosted by Big East schools each year. The eight-year deal — initially planned to run from 2015 to 2022, but instead running through 2023 because of the cancellation of the 2020 games — had each Big East team participate a minimum of six times and each Big Ten program take part a minimum of four times. The only exception was UConn, which moved from the American Athletic Conference to the Big East for the 2020–2021 season and never played in the Gavitt Tipoff Games.
Each game played at a Big East campus was televised by Fox Sports 1 and each game played on a Big Ten campus was televised by Fox Sports 1 or the Big Ten Network.
The Big Ten won three series and the Big East won one. The other four series were tied.
The series was named in honor of the late Dave Gavitt (1937–2011), former athletic director at Providence College who served from 1979 to 1990 as the first commissioner of the original Big East Conference of 1979–2013.