In the university stage, the cultivation of sports EQ should be paid enough attention to, and sportsmanship is one of the essential core qualities of university students. The paper first defines the concept of university students’ core literacy and university basketball teaching, expounds the relationship between the two, and with the core literacy as the background, analyzes the current situation and challenge of cultivating sportsmanship in university basketball teaching, and discusses the effective countermeasures and methods, aiming at expanding the path of cultivating sportsmanship and upgrading the quality of talent training. Promote the connotation development of university basketball teaching.