There’s little better in college athletics than a hot crowd supporting their school(s) in a huge rivalry matchup.

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And even in NCAA Division III basketball, which often falls under the radar due to its small school sizes and lack of major publicity, the stories behind the best rivalries in the division are worth sinking your teeth into.

As the college basketball season starts to tick on, we wanted to share some of the top tussles that make D-III basketball special — and show that even in D-III, rivalry hatred knows no bounds.

Here’s a look at five of the best rivalries you’ll find on the D-III hoops calendar this year — including a few that you can catch live and exclusively on FloCollege this winter:

Calvin vs. Hope

Let’s start with the most obvious, deserving choice on this list. Simply known in local circles as “The Rivalry,” Calvin-Hope is D-III basketball’s answer to Duke-North Carolina — packed gyms, frenetic games, and plenty of animosity. The pair of tiny Christian colleges in western Michigan first met in 1920 on the men’s side, while the women followed suit in 1965; Hope and Calvin, respectively, lead the all-time series each way. It’s been chaotic ever since. 

The Rivalry was suspended from 1925-28 because of disorderly fan behavior, and while the Flying Dutchmen hold the advantage 111-105 spanning 216 total games against their rivals going into 2025-26, the Knights have scored more points overall — by one single point (14,637-14,636), in fact — across the century-plus the game has taken place. A famous January 1997 encounter at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that featured 11,442 fans is still one of the most attended D-III basketball games ever, and sold-out gyms are still the norm today, particularly at Hope’s DeVos Fieldhouse, which is the national leader in average men’s and women’s basketball attendance. 

Calvin-Hope is the country’s pinnacle of small-school hoops rivalries, and when it comes to history, intensity,  and hate on the hardwood, there is simply no equal. 

Randolph-Macon vs. Hampden-Sydney

Whether you call it “The Game” or the oldest small-school rivalry in the south, Randolph-Macon vs. Hampden-Sydney is a tussle that spans across all sports the Yellow Jackets and Tigers partake in, but when the weather gets cold, the bad blood especially heats up on the court. 

On top of both men’s squads being national powerhouses — Randolph-Macon won the 2022 national championship, while Hampden-Sydney made the title game in 2024 — with games often having major NCAA Tournament and/or Old Dominion Athletic Conference implications, clashes between the two teams frequently sell out their respective gyms as the Richmond, Virginia area flocks to watch two of the most established names today in D-III basketball. 

The Yellow Jackets and Tigers only compete on the men’s side as H-SC is an all-male school, and according to the R-MC record book that dates back to as far as 1950, Macon holds the series advantage since then at 103-60, including a 12-game winning streak from 2018-23. 

However, the Tigers took both meetings last season and handed the Yellow Jackets two of their three regular-season losses, so no matter what the record of either team is, something is almost always bound to pop off when the two teams meet.

Haverford vs. Swarthmore

One of the most ancient rivalries in all of college athletics, Haverford and Swarthmore’s history began on the gridiron in 1879 when the two Pennsylvania-based, private liberal arts colleges met in football for the first time.

 As both the Garnet and Ford football teams were eventually made defunct as time went on, however, the rivalry’s spotlight and the coveted Hood Trophy, which the schools’ athletic programs battle for throughout the year, eventually made its way to the basketball court instead. Though you’ll see plenty of Ford’s fans — especially when the game is being played at Haverford — donning “Swat Sucks” T-shirts poking fun at their rivals. 

Yet, there is no laughing matter when it comes to the all-time series history as the Garnet has dominated on both the men’s and women’s sides, leading by 104-63 and 51-36 margins, respectively. In fact, the powerful Swarthmore men (who have made the national semifinals in two of the past five years) have won 18 games in a row against Haverford going into 2025-26, though the Fords’ women’s squad has captured four of the past five matchups against the Garnet going into the winter in the meantime.

Amherst vs. Williams

With a combined six men’s and women’s national championships between them (all acquired since the turn of the century), Amherst-Williams is most famous for being the most-played D-III football rivalry and “The Biggest Little Game in America,” but maybe it’s time to give the hoops edition of the rivalry its proper flowers. The stories of the two schools are intertwined with one another, dating back to 1821, when a former Williams president left the school with 15 students and several faculty members to found Amherst. 

The football game came first, but basketball games came around later — and in the last few decades in particular, it has often delivered. Since January 2001, the Mammoths lead both the men’s and women’s series by 40-25 and 34-19 margins, respectively, with a number of classic battles in that span in New England Small College Athletic Conference play and beyond. 

The women’s edition of the rivalry, however, features probably the more intriguing stories over the past quarter-century; the Ephs won 14 games in a row against Amherst from 2001-07 before the Mammoths returned the favor with a 17-game streak from 2015-24, while Williams additionally captured arguably the most important meeting in the rivalry’s history, the 2013 D-III third-place game. 

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps vs. Pomona-Pitzer

Before diving into what makes Claremont-Mudd-Scripps vs. Pomona-Pitzer a rivalry unlike few others in college athletics, it’s first relevant to provide some important background information. 

The two athletic programs actually comprise five total schools — Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Scripps College, Pomona College, and Pitzer College — based in Claremont, California, with adjoining campuses that cover a total of roughly 550 acres. The schools share a main library, and students often cross-register for classes at different colleges; student-athletes could theoretically be working on a class project together one day, then play against each other in a game on opposing teams the next. 

That all makes Claremont-Mudd-Scripps vs. Pomona-Pitzer athletic events uniquely personal, only adding fuel to the fires when the ball gets tipped. On the women’s side, PP and CMS are Nos. 1 and 2 all-time in winning Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular-season titles, meaning that there are usually conference championship implications on the line whenever either squad makes the short, several hundred-yard walk across Claremont’s Sixth Street.

 The men’s teams are often bound to have a few barnburners, too, like this past January when the Stags toppled the Sagehens in double overtime.

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