For the primary time as an 18-school entity, the Large Ten unveiled its males’s and girls’s basketball schedules. Every college’s opponents had been introduced in early Might, and the convention revealed the dates of these matchups Thursday.
The league will keep a 20-game schedule for males’s basketball. Each college performs 14 groups as soon as and three groups twice. The league chosen every groups’ three double-play opponents based mostly on a number of components, together with rivalry standing, geography and nationwide prominence.
Every Japanese and Central time-zone college will take one journey to the West Coast the place they are going to play two video games over a four-day interval. To ease journey, every of these 14 colleges journey to both Oregon and Washington or USC and UCLA.
For the West Coast groups touring east, three of the single-play journeys embrace back-to-back video games inside shut proximity. Washington and Oregon, as an illustration, bundle video games to Ohio State-Penn State, Michigan-Michigan State and Iowa-Wisconsin. Each colleges’ solely one-game journey east takes place in Minnesota. USC and UCLA bundle journeys to Maryland-Rutgers, Illinois-Indiana, Purdue-Northwestern whereas each take single journeys to Nebraska.
Not one of the West Coast colleges will play outdoors of the Pacific time zone in December.
In girls’s basketball, there are 18 Large Ten video games. Every group performs 16 of the opposite groups as soon as and has a delegated rivalry opponent to play twice. These double-play collection embrace Indiana–Purdue, Michigan-Michigan State, Wisconsin–Minnesota, Iowa-Nebraska, Illinois-Northwestern, Oregon–Washington, USC-UCLA, Penn State-Rutgers and Maryland–Ohio State.
The West Coast colleges will bundle all six video games into three journeys to the Japanese and Central time zones. Like the boys, all Japanese and Central time-zone girls’s groups will journey west simply as soon as with two video games over a four-day interval.
For each the women and men, the single-play places flip for the 2025-26 season. The double-play opponents will stay in place via that season as properly.
Each Large Ten tournaments happen in Indianapolis, and the highest 15 groups qualify. The lads’s match is slated for March 12-16, whereas the ladies’s match is scheduled for March 5-9.
Previewing the boys’s basketball schedule
Purdue has an important alternative to construct some momentum on its option to making an attempt to win a 3rd straight convention title. The Boilermakers don’t play a group in my preseason High 25 till Sport 10 towards Michigan. The schedule is backloaded and Purdue does play challengers Indiana and Michigan twice, however quick begins have been key to the final two title runs, as Purdue has opened 12-2 in convention each years.
Michigan State and Indiana even have backloaded schedules and simpler stretches to start out. Each groups don’t see one in all my preseason High 25 groups till Sport 7. This may very well be helpful for the Hoosiers, particularly. It is a large 12 months for Mike Woodson, and it may take a while to work in his star-studded switch class.
Wanting over these schedules is a reminder of how unusual it’s that 4 West Coast colleges are actually on this league. It is mindless (hooray convention realignment), however the schedule makers have no less than provide you with logical options, making it so every of the 4 colleges solely takes 4 journeys east and every play their former Pac-12 members twice. You may have some previous Large Ten coaches crying foul if there’s ever a season the place one former Pac-12 college is head and shoulders higher the opposite three, which may create schedule imbalance and a bonus for that group within the convention race. It’s laborious to say if that’ll occur this 12 months as a result of there’s a lot roster turnover all through the league. — C.J. Moore, school basketball employees author
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Previewing the ladies’s matchups
The nation’s two main returning scorers are scheduled to face off on Feb. 2 — the Sunday earlier than the Tremendous Bowl. USC’s Juju Watkins (27.1 factors per sport) and Iowa’s Lucy Olsen, who averaged 23.3 factors per sport at Villanova final 12 months, meet at Carver-Hawkeye Enviornment in what guarantees to be one of many nation’s high regular-season matchups. Iowa bought out each residence sport final 12 months, the primary group in Large Ten historical past to take action.
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Each Iowa and USC had been No. 1 seeds within the NCAA match. The Hawkeyes, which misplaced Clark and Kate Martin to the WNBA however deliver again Hannah Stuelke, superior to the NCAA championship sport, whereas the Trojans reached the Elite Eight.
UCLA and Ohio State had been No. 2 NCAA match seeds and return two of the nation’s high gamers in Kiki Rice (Bruins) and Cote McMahon (Buckeyes). Indiana, which was a No. 4 seed, options returning senior Sydney Parrish. The Hoosiers reached the Candy 16, the place they fell to eventual nationwide champion South Carolina 79-75. Nebraska, which reached the Large Ten championship sport, brings again heart Alexis Murkowski. Perennial energy Maryland fell to a No. 10 seed final 12 months after an Elite Eight look in 2023 and expects to rebound.
Among the many highest-profile girls’s basketball video games embrace UCLA at Indiana, Jan. 4; Indiana at Iowa, Jan. 12; USC at Indiana, Jan. 19; Ohio State at UCLA, Feb. 5; Ohio State at USC, Feb. 8; UCLA at USC, Feb. 13; Iowa at Ohio State, Feb. 17; Ohio State at Indiana, Feb. 20; UCLA at Iowa, Feb. 23; USC at UCLA, March 1. — Dochterman, Iowa employees author
Required studying
(Picture: Mitchell Layton / Getty Photographs)
