Andre Curbelo doesn’t care what the final standings say or how the B1G is determining its regular season conference champion this year. The Illinois freshman believes his team did enough to stake a claim to the league title.

Much has been made about the B1G regular season title over the last week. Michigan was named the outright champion with a 14-3 record in B1G play, posting the highest winning percentage in the conference this year. Illinois, on the other hand, finished 16-4 and won the head-to-head meeting with the Wolverines 76-53 last week.

Illinois played three more games and won the head-to-head but doesn’t receive a share because of its winning percentage. Curbelo, who played a critical role in the Illini’s success this season, doesn’t seem to care.

“In my book we the champs,” Curbelo wrote on Twitter.

Curbelo isn’t the only one to chime in on the matter. Both Illinois’ Brad Underwood and Michigan’s Juwan Howard offered their thoughts on the regular season title.

“I know we won 16 games and we played all 20 of them,” Underwood said, per Jeremy Werner of Illini Inquirer. “We all knew this would be a unique situation with an unbalanced schedule…but I know this, no one’s won more games than us, and we played them all.”

Howard isn’t interested in sharing the title.

“I don’t get into that stuff, man,” Howard said, per 247Sports. “You’re not gonna get any sound-bytes from me or any bulletin board shit, I don’t care about any of that stuff. I just care that we’re Big Ten champs and I’m so proud of our guys for working their butts off since June and grinding. 

“All the unknowns, being able to pivot and sacrifice what their college life is supposed to be like. But still manage to have a season and then be stars in their own role. That’s amazing what our student-athletes were able to endure and overcome and then at the same time accomplish something special, that’s the Big Ten title. So I’m not gonna let anyone — I repeat, anyone — try to ruin it for them. They earned it.”

Michigan will be the No. 1 seed in the B1G Tournament while Illinois is the No. 2 seed. There’s a chance we get one more head-to-head meeting between the two teams in the championship game on Sunday.

Then we might find who should known as the true champion.