Conference play began in early-January 2013, and concluded in March with the 2013 Big Ten men's basketball tournament at the United Center in Chicago.

In addition, Jordan Hulls won the Senior CLASS Award and Aaron Craft earned Men's Basketball Academic All-American of the Year with Cody Zeller and Jordan Hulls also earning first and third team Academic All-America recognition, respectively.

[1][5][6] Ohio State won the four-team Hall of Fame Tipoff tournament on November 18 at Mohegan Sun Arena.

[8] Illinois won the eight-team Maui Invitational Tournament on November 21 at Lahaina Civic Center.

[9] Michigan won the sixteen-team NIT Season Tip-off tournament on November 23 at Madison Square Garden.

As a result, the Big Ten set a record for most matchups between two top 10 opponents in conference play with a total of 9 such games.

On February 2, 2013, Michigan (number 1 AP/number 2 Coaches) and Indiana (3/3) appeared on ESPN's College GameDay at Assembly Hall.

[16] Indiana won 81–73,[17] and the television broadcast of the game on ESPN set a Big Ten record for viewership with 4.035 million viewers.

[21] Throughout the conference regular season, the Big Ten offices named one or two players of the week each Monday.

On December 11, Paul also earned United States Basketball Writers Association Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week recognition.

[43] The Big Ten became the first conference to send four teams to the Sweet Sixteen in back-to-back years since the 1997 and 1998 tournaments.

[54] Those 5 first team All-Big Ten selections were the only players from the conference to declare early for the NBA draft.

[55] Burke, Hardaway, Trevor Mbakwe, Oladipo, Brandon Paul, Thomas, and Zeller were among the 60 players invited to the 2013 NBA Draft Combine.

[56] The following all-conference selections were listed as seniors: Jared Berggren, Mbakwe, Paul, Christian Watford and D. J. Richardson.

On January 9, 4 Big Ten points guards (Burke, Keith Appling, Craft and Andre Hollins) among the 20 Cousy Award finalists.

[61] On January 10 the Wooden Award midseason top 25 list was announced and it included Burke, Brandon Paul and Deshaun Thomas.

[62] On January 31, Burke, Victor Oladipo, Thomas and Cody Zeller were named to the Oscar Robertson Trophy (USBWA National Player of the Year) midseason top 12 list, while Yogi Ferrell, Glenn Robinson III and Nik Stauskas were named to the Wayman Tisdale Award (USBWA National Freshman of the Year) top 12 midseason list.

[64] On February 26, Oladipo, Zeller, Thomas, Paul, Burke and Berggren were among the top 30 finalists for the Naismith Award.

[66] On March 9, Burke, Oladipo, Thomas and Zeller were named as top 15 Wooden Award finalists.

[75] On March 26, Burke, Oladipo, Thomas, and Zeller were selected to the 21-man 2013 Lute Olson All-America Team.

[79] Also on April 1, Glenn Robinson III and Gary Harris were named to the 21-man 2013 Kyle Macy Freshman All-America team.

[84] On April 5, Burke won the Oscar Robertson Trophy from the USBWA as well as the John R. Wooden Award.

[94][95] On March 12, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association released its 2012–13 Men's All-District Teams, based upon voting from its national membership.