Grading the 2025-26 Big Ten Men's Basketball Non-Conference Schedules: the As

This year is the closest I've come to awarding an A+ for a non-conference schedule grade to a Big Ten team. In fact, both of today's schedules are the best I've seen since I starting reviewing Big Ten non-conference schedules a few years ago. Props to Michigan and Purdue. They are challenging themselves and the committee should reward them come March.

Grading the 2025-26 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Non-Conference Schedules: the Bs

This conference has too many teams. Eighteen schedules is too many to review.

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Grading the 2025-26 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Non-Conference Schedules: the Cs

We talked last week about why non-conference scheduling matters. I’m not going to repeat those reasons in today’s article (if you missed last week, feel free to check out last week’s article below). Grading the 2025-26 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Non-Conference Schedules: the Ds and FsThere are more games

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Grading the 2025-26 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Non-Conference Schedules: the Ds and Fs

There are more games for Penn State against teams from Connecticut (3) than Pennsylvania (2).

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Grading Criteria

These grades are highly subjective but in general there are things I want to see more of and things I want to see less of.

One day when I'm in charge of the remnants of the former United States, here's what I'll demand:

• More games against rivals. This one should be self explanatory. IU should play Kentucky. The people want to see Wisconsin/Marquette, Nebraska/Creighton, UCLA/Arizona, and Illinois/Mizzou. Play your rivals, stop ducking them.
• Games against quality competition. There are 365 Division 1 programs this season. Not all of them are of equal value. More games against top 100 caliber programs is a good thing. I judge quality competition fairly liberally around here: any program from a ACC, Big 12, Big East, SEC, or MWC (ie: multi-bid conference) qualifies. Outside of those conferences, any team that finished last season in KenPom's top 100 or begins this season in Torvik's top 100 should count.
• Games against in-state or regional programs. Do we need Florida A&M to bus to Minneapolis to play a college basketball game? Or for Le Moyne to travel to Washington? The answer is no. Play your in-state foes. If you don't have any, play regional teams. Stop being scared of taking a loss to a program that they will never forget. That's part of the magic of college basketball. Chicago State can defeat Northwestern right after the Wildcats defeat #1 Purdue..

What I want to see less of

• Neutral site games. Let me be clear. Neutral site games have their place. That place is Feast Week and during winter break when the students are gone. Teams should not be regularly playing 4+ neutral site games. It robs students and season ticket holders of opportunities to see your marquee games. College sports should still involve the student section.
• Games against the bottom of the barrel programs. Think anyone below the 300 mark. Do your walk-ons really need to play 10 times this season? They do not.
• Avoiding quality mid-majors, in-state opponents, and rivals. Stop it. Play a MVC, A10, or good MAC team. Play several. Play the school located a couple hours down the road from you that is filled with players whose dream school was your program. Invite your crosstown team over for dinner. If you duck opportunities to lose to good in-state schools, I'm going to call you out. It's cowardly and you should be ashamed.

On to this week's grades.

Purdue Boilermakers

Rivals played: 0
In-state teams played: 1/9
Neutral site games: 3
Road games: 1
Quality competition: 7
Sub 300 competition: 0

Once again Purdue sits near the top of the non-conference schedule grades. With 7 projected top-100 opponents and zero sub 300 competition it's easy to see why.

There's a true road game at Alabama where the Crimson Tide will attempt to avenge their loss in Mackey Arena last year. I expect Purdue to lose that one as Alabama should be a top 25 team this year and despite being a football school it can be difficult to play there.

Purdue finishes out their home/home series with Marquette at home and starts a new home/home series with Iowa State. Buy games include two of the MAC favorites - with Akron being preseason 88 on Torvik -, everyone's favorite Greg Kampe and Oakland, in-state Evansville, and Eastern Illinois. I'm glad Purdue is playing an in-state school after not playing any of them the last couple of seasons. Believe it or not, Evansville won their most recent game against Purdue in 2005. I'm not thrilled with Eastern Illinois being on the schedule - I'd rather see another in-state school like Fort Wayne, Valpo, or Indiana State - but the Panthers are just a 2.5 hour drive away.

Neutral site games against Memphis, either Wake Forest or Texas Tech, and Auburn (in Indianapolis) finish out the schedule.

Two areas of possible complaints with this schedule: 1) Purdue plays zero preseason top 10 teams despite being either #1 or #2 on the majority of preseason rankings. Iowa State, Marquette, Auburn, and Memphis were all great last year but probably take a step backwards this season. Playing UK in the regular season instead of an exhibition might have been better. 2) I'd really like to see Purdue play one of Butler/Notre Dame. I don't see Notre Dame getting rekindled while Shrewsberry is their coach and Butler is unlikely with Purdue wanting one "neutral" home game in Indianapolis each year, but it would be nice to play one of your in-state rivals. Failing that, a second in-state mid/low-major would be preferred even if they likely aren't much better than Eastern Illinois. Had Purdue checked off either of those two boxes, this would be an A+ schedule.

Michigan Wolverines

Rivals played: 0
In-state teams played: 1/6
Neutral site games: 5
Road games: 1
Quality competition: 7
Sub 300 competition: 0

Wow. It's a good thing this Michigan team is expected to be good, because several Big Ten teams would put up losing records against this non-conference slate.

Fellow preseason top 10 team Duke is the headliner, but the Vegas games should be excellent as well. A road game at TCU is nothing to see at and Villanova should be a good home game for the students.

The real issue I have with this schedule is that there are 5 neutral site games. In addition to the three games in Vegas, Michigan plays Duke in Washington D.C. and Wake Forest in Detroit. The Duke game also falls in the middle of Big Ten play in February. I don't understand why Michigan and Duke are playing in Washington on February 21. The students are in session, basketball is in full swing. Play this game on campus next time and I'll hand you an A+.

Games against Oakland, La Salle, Middle Tennessee, and McNeese are all good and fine. McNeese just misses the top 100 on the preseason rankings (although I expect them to fall off a cliff post Will Wade). This quartet rounds out Michigan's schedule and are the equal of some Big Ten's games 5-8. Well done Michigan.

Before we conclude this year's non-conference schedule grades, I want to mention a few more thoughts. One shouldn't compare Big Ten non-conference schedules to those of the ACC or SEC. Those two leagues play an 18 game conference schedule and therefore have two extra non-conference games to fill. When an ACC/SEC team has 6 good non-conference games, that's the equivalent of 4 in the Big Ten. If an ACC/SEC has one true road game in the non-conference that's the equivalent of zero in the Big Ten. I saw a lot of talk about how tough some of these school's schedules were in the offseason - and while some of them (Alabama) actually are tough, others merely look tough on the surface. Don't fall for ESPN's propaganda. Call that shit out.

And now, my favorite non-conference schedule of this season. The graphic is terrible, but this is how teams should schedule.

San Francisco, Ole Miss, UNLV, Purdue, Baylor, Louisville, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Utah State, and one of Texas Tech/Wake Forest. There's also three buy games but one of those is a decent MVC team. I won't say this often, but well done Penny Hardaway.