Ball State Cardinals men's basketball
2024–25 Ball State Cardinals men's basketball team
University	Ball State University
First season	1920–21; 105 years ago
Head coach	Michael Lewis (3rd season)
Conference	Mid-American
Location	Muncie, Indiana
Arena	Worthen Arena (capacity: 11,500)
Nickname	Cardinals
Student section	The Nest
Colors	Cardinal and white[1]
Uniforms
Home Away
NCAA tournament Sweet Sixteen
1990
NCAA tournament appearances
1964*, 1981, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 2000
NAIA tournament second round
1957
Conference tournament champions
1981, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 2000
Conference regular-season champions
1981, 1982, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1998, 2000
Conference division regular-season champions
1998, 2000, 2002, 2009, 2016, 2017, 2020
* at Division II level

The Ball State Cardinals men's basketball team represents Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The Cardinals first basketball season was 1920–21. The school's team currently competes in the Mid-American Conference. The team last played in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament in 2000.

The Cardinals have had various levels of success throughout their 94 seasons of competition. Although there was little success in the program from its start until the 1970s, the next two decades would be the highlight of the program's performance. Ball State became a sporadic leader in the Mid-American Conference, winning a record seven MAC tournaments between 1981 and 2000. The Cardinals also accomplished a large feat during the 2001 Maui Invitational Tournament, when they upset #4 Kansas and #3 UCLA on consecutive days. In 2017, the Cardinals beat #8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Purcell Pavilion by a score of 80–77, breaking a sixteen-year drought against ranked teams.