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 Fs

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

Off Tackle RepublicBoilerUp89

This week, we get to the acceptable schedules. There's usually some solid opponents but the overall schedule grade gets weighed down by something. Maybe it's the bottom half of the schedule being garbage, maybe it's a lower number of quality games than expected, or maybe it's the program ducking rivals, road games, and in-state opponents. The point is, these Big Ten teams can do better.

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 dictator of the United State, 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.

Nebraska Cornhuskers

Rivals played: 2 or 3
In-state teams played: 1/2
Neutral site games: 3
Road games: 0
Quality competition: 4
Sub 300 competition: 5

Let's start with the good. A home game against Creighton. A game against former Big 8 rival Oklahoma. Two more solidish opponents in New Mexico (New Mexico will probably still be about a top 100 team this year) and either Kansas State or Mississippi State.

The problem is the absolute garbage that is the bottom of this schedule. North Dakota, South Carolina Upstate, New Hampshire, Maryland Eastern Shore, and West Georgia are all awful competition level. Not only are the sub 300 level, but all five will compete for the bottom 25 rankings this season.

Since the New Mexico (and Kansas State or Mississippi State) games are at a neutral site in Kansas City and the Oklahoma game is in Sioux Fall, South Dakota, Nebrasketball home fans get to see one watchable opponent in Creighton.

The PBA is a really good basketball atmosphere and despite their complete lack of historical success, Nebraska fans fill it up. They deserve better than this home slate. The team might deserve better too if they end up on the outside of the bubble.

Iowa Hawkeyes

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

I'll be blunt. The minus is because Iowa won't play Drake or Northern Iowa. As much as I appreciate Iowa playing Iowa State yearly (and I do), we will not and can not forget what they took from us.

For decades Iowa (and Iowa State) had home and home series with both Drake and Northern Iowa. Around 2010, the power conference Iowans started to feel pressure from losing to their non-conference rivals and a neutral site double-header replaced the in-state home & home series with the opponents flipping each year. Then the double-header concept died after 2018. The Hawkeyes have played neither Drake nor Northern Iowa since. This is some bullshit.

Games against Xavier, Mississippi, Iowa State, and Grand Canyon/Utah represent four solid opponents. I don't hate the Bucknell game being played in Des Moines, but this gives me another opportunity to ask why not just play the Division 1 program that makes their home in Des Moines? Overall there's too much chicken feed and not enough protein.

Indiana Hoosiers

Rivals played: 1
In-state teams played: 0/10
Neutral site games: 2
Road games: 1
Quality competition: 4
Sub 300 competition: 3

The Indiana-Kentucky rivalry is back! Tom Crean must be so happy. There's so many great gifs of him from that rivalry. The series has been dead since the Watshot in December 2011 was followed up by UK defeating Tom Crean and his finger guns in the 2012 NCAA tournament.

Neutral site games in Indianapolis and Chicago makes some sense although I think both games benefit IU's opponents more. Marquette needs to have a presence in Chicago for recruiting and Louisville would love to break back into Indianapolis for recruiting.

Other than UK, Louisville, Marquette, and Kansas State there is nothing of value to see here. No games against any of the various in-state programs is disappointing. Even if IU doesn't want to play Notre Dame or Butler every year, there could at least schedule IU-Indianapolis or Southern Indiana instead of Alabama A&M.

UCLA Bruins

Rivals played: 3ish - I dunno, is ASU a rival?
In-state teams played: 5/25
Neutral site games: 3
Road games: 0
Quality competition: 4
Sub 300 competition: 1

UCLA plays multiple top tier teams in Gonzaga and Arizona. They play three former Pac teams. Games against Cal Poly, Pepperdine, Cal, Sacramento State, and Riverside help UCLA lead the conference in playing in-state foes. This is all fantastic.

Not fantastic: three of their four big games are at neutral sites and zero road games. The top opponents are great challenges, but the atmospheres could have been much better.

It's also worth mentioning that while Pepperdine and Eastern Washington won't begin the season as sub 300 programs on Torvik, they are awful close with both starting the season in the 290s.

Overall this is a solid schedule, but lacks some of the solid foundation of the B-graded schedules.

Northwestern Wildcats

Rivals played: 1
In-state teams played: 1/12
Neutral site games: 4
Road games: 0
Quality competition: 5
Sub 300 competition: 2

Full disclosure: Northwestern wasn't originally getting a C+. I originally had them on the B- line. After consulting with a PerpetuallyAggrievedCat however, I had no choice but to drop their grade. In fact, I think the cat's words describe Northwestern's schedule better than I can.

PerpetuallyAggrievedCat: Hey look, two super interesting games with Iowa State and CBI champion Illinois State that would've been (1) fun and (2) great for the resume, shunted into the exhibition schedule. That's annoying.

The tomato cans? Meh. Tomatoey. A D-I newcomer in Mercyhurst, random East Coastish schools like Boston and Howard, an HBCU in Jackson State, a regional game in Valpo. Just play Eastern Illinois, NIU, Chicago State, and UIC and call it a day if you're going to bring in Mercyhurst, Boston, Howard, and Jackson State. Hell, swap Loyola in for a vaguely-challenging game in Cleveland State and you've repaired an underwhelming home schedule

That's because anyone worth playing is gonna be away from Evanston, apparently. UVA and Sakerlina in the Greenbrier is fine--good, even!--and a roadie to DePaul looks better on paper than it is in reality. But why oh why do Oklahoma State and Butler need to be in these dumbass neutral venues, rather than Actually Fun Home-and-Homes? Just give us a C and move on.

BoilerUp89: okay, I'm back just to add a couple extra thoughts. Northwestern originally had a game with Arizona State on the schedule but that got axed early in the process this year and likely replaced with an equivalent level team. The Butler game is in Indianapolis so it's kinda a road game. Especially when you consider that its part of a double-header also featuring Purdue/Auburn and I can't imagine many Purdue fans (who I expect to dominate ticket sales) will be rooting for Northwestern. Northwestern has also been pulling some recruits out of Indiana lately so I don't absolutely hate that one.

The Oklahoma State game at the United Center is really bad though. No reason for that not to be a home/home.

Michigan State Spartans

Rivals played: 0 but they don't have any non-con rivals
In-state teams played: 2/6 plus Toledo
Neutral site games: 4
Road games: 0
Quality competition: 5
Sub 300 competition: 1

I honestly really like this schedule. It's headlined by the home game against Duke, but the Spartans get a second huge home game against Arkansas too! The students should have fun with both of those.

The MTE is a bit lacking as Sparty got the unfortunate pairing with East Carolina for their opening game. For some reason, they are guaranteed to play North Carolina rather than having a tradition four team bracket. ECU holds back the American's conference ranking every year and they are holding back MSU's schedule strength and grade here.

Likewise San Jose State is one of the worst programs in the MWC. Although they qualify as "quality competition" per the standard I set up at the start of this year's exercise, - with apologies to Tim Miles - they really won't be.

The buy games really make this a pretty good schedule though. There's well coached Colgate, Toledo, and Oakland squads on the schedule with the latter being played in Detroit during the holiday season. Will Izzo or Kampe have the uglier sweater? I love to see MSU playing Detroit and Oakland. This is a well put together schedule. I just can't put it on the B-grade line because there's only four games that I think Michigan State could lose that wouldn't be massive upsets.

Next week (okay later this week because I was lazy last week): We sort through the remaining 9 teams and see how many deserve Bs. The answer is 7 barring a late surprise as I write the B-grade article.