Nixon's Big Ten German Rivalry

by David Hein
Wisconsin men’s basketball games aren't televised in Germany, but that doesn't mean there's no interest in the Badgers there. Each time Wisconsin meets up with Indiana, Big Ten bragging rights are on the line -- at least in the locker room of Walter Tigers Tuebingen, a professional basketball club.

Former Badger Ray Nixon x'06 and his Tuebingen teammate A.J. Moye, who played for Indiana University, go at it all season.

"We had a bit of a conference rivalry last year. When Wisconsin would lose, A.J. would come to practice and say: 'How 'bout those Badgers?' and I would do the same when the Hoosiers lost," says Nixon, who is in his second season playing professionally in Germany's top league.

And the two have gone at it again this season -- from thousands of miles away in this sleepy university city, which has about eighty-five thousand residents on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers in southwestern Germany.

Nixon may be more up-to-date on Big Ten basketball than anyone else in Tuebingen, but if you want to know about life in Germany, he's probably not the guy to ask. . . .

Want to read the rest of the story? Join WAA and receive Badger Insider Magazine.