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

Does your football team stink? Have no fear. College basketball season is almost here!

With another basketball season fast approaching it is time for one of my favorite traditions since I became an Internet "writer": grading each of the Big Ten men's basketball non-conference schedules.

Some of you may be wondering, why does BoilerUp89 care if Washington plays a competitive non-conference slate of games? That's a fair question. I'll get into a full list of reasons why, but here's the main point: After years of watching all our Big Ten basketball programs fail to be nationally competitive, I've come to like each and every one of you. Even the redheaded step-children and the ugly ones. I may not love your team, but I do generally want you to do well in the non-conference (the exception being wisconsin).

Why the Non-Conference Schedule Matters

Strength of schedule matters, now more than ever. Why did North Carolina and San Diego State make last year's First Four? Well - other than UNC chairing the committee - both had top-10 non-conference strengths of schedule. UNC didn't even need to win any of their tough games - they simply played a lot of them.

Why did 22-11 Purdue get the same seed as 25-8 Maryland and the preferred pod location despite Maryland finishing in front of Purdue in the Big Ten standings? Maryland had the 359th best non-conference strength of schedule while Purdue had the 18th. Harder schedules give teams more opportunities to rack up Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins. This not only helps teams make the NCAA tournament, it improves their seed line.

Unlike in football, the conference's overall non-conference record matters. Sure, the committee went overboard with this philosophy and did morally questionable things with the SEC last March. That doesn't mean that conference records don't matter.

If the Big Ten gets fat on cupcakes, the conference will receive less marginal tournament bids. Playing (and winning) our fair share of games against other top conferences raises the floor for the Big Ten as a whole. All of us can contribute. Even Penn State.

A tough non-conference slate prepares your team for Big Ten season.

Most importantly, we are going to watch many of these games. I would rather watch interesting games than watch the Terrapins beat up Texas Rio Grande Valley for the 8th time in a season. Limit the cupcakes against programs from across the country. Play games that matter. Whether that's against quality competition or against regional and in-state programs doesn't matter too much but fans want to see opponents get up for the game. We don't want to see a team roll over and die in the first five minutes as they are just there to collect their check.

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.

Penn State Nittany Lions

Rivals played: 1
In-state teams played: 2/14
Neutral site games: 2
Road games: 1
Quality competition: 2
Sub 300 competition: 3

There were conscious decisions made here by the Penn State basketball program to try and rack up meaningless wins. At no point was there an attempt to put together a well rounded, Big Ten worthy schedule. Mike Rhoades, Patrick Kraft, and the entire program should be ashamed of themselves.

Where should we begin to dissect the corpse of Penn State basketball schedule? Let's start with the good news.

Penn State is traveling to Division 1 newcomer New Haven in what is sure to be the Chargers biggest home game of the season. It's a nice gesture from Penn State even if it's a slightly confusing one. Why is Penn State the program to West Haven, Connecticut to welcome the lone new member to D1? Wouldn't UConn make more sense? A puzzling act of generosity that brings up more and more questions the longer you think about it. Why didn't PSU do something similar for actual in-state program Mercyhurst last year? That would have made more sense, right?

I appreciate the road game at a low major. It's something I wish more Big Ten teams were willing to do. It was almost enough to uplift this schedule's grade to the D-level. The specific opponent just seems a bit odd.

In other good news, Penn State plays two fellow Pennsylvania programs in Pitt and La Salle. Renewing the Pittsburgh rivalry in particular is encouraging - it's been dormant for too long.

The home game against Providence is also acceptable. Sure, Providence will probably be mediocre this year, but that's Penn State finding their level of competition in a fellow high-major conference. We shouldn't complain about that.

Now onto the list of complaints and why Penn State receives a F.

The third best opponent is probably Harvard (although you could make your case for Campbell or La Salle). Harvard! The Crimson haven't been a top 100 team since 2015. They won't be this year. When your third best game is Harvard, you aren't challenging yourself nearly enough. Anything below 9-2 is a disaster.

Games against Pitt are always nice to see for Penn State, but for some reason the two schools are playing in the town of Hershey, PA instead of scheduling a home/home series. This is the two teams' first meeting since 2017.

These two teams have played 148 times and the all-time series is 76-72. They haven't played in Pittsburgh since 2013 or State College since 2002. This is broken and this is a missed opportunity to build the rivalry into something special. Rivalry games hit harder on campus. If PSU and Pitt really wanted to play a game in Hershey, why not schedule a double-header there during winter break?

Penn State has a home game in Philadelphia! That's actually good news, the problem is they are ducking the top 3 programs in the city to play La Salle. I assume this is because La Salle was the only Philly program that would give PSU a home game in their city. Games against Villanova (solid), Temple (rebuilding), or St. Joe's (solid) would move the needle a lot more. Of course Penn State might actually lose to one of those teams. They obviously can't risk that.

There are seven buy games at home. None of them are interesting. Navy might have been semi-interesting if DeChellis was still their coach, but DeChellis retired in March. Find something interesting about the PSU home games and tell us about it in the comments. We need something to write about when we preview these games in November.

Penn State signed up for the Penn State/Mohegan Sun MTE. As the MTE's name implies it involves Penn State and a game at the Mohegan Sun. Just not the combination of the two together. It's a three team round robin tournament involving Penn State, Boston, and Harvard. The headliner game appears to be Boston and Harvard who are playing at the Mohegan Sun. Penn State has opted for playing the two games at home making their MTE into buy games.

There are more games for Penn State against teams from Connecticut (3) than Pennsylvania (2). I don't know how this happened, I just know it upsets me greatly.

Finally, Penn State decided to buy off VCU rather than play them. For those of you who don't know, VCU puts in all of their head coaches contract a buyout term that requires them to play at VCU as part of a home/home series in the next three seasons after they are hired away. Alternatively that coach/hiring school can pay an increased amount of buyout money.

Penn State was supposed to play at VCU this season. Every former VCU basketball coach has honored this since VCU started doing this: Jeff Capel III's Oklahoma, Anthony Grant's Alabama, Shaka Smart's Texas, and Will Wade's LSU. All of those are bigger basketball programs than Penn State. All of them took losses at VCU. Ryan Odom is expected to follow suit and play at VCU despite now leading in-state Virginia. Mike Rhoades and Penn State are forking over the extra $250k. That's incredibly soft.

I understand that Penn State basketball is likely to be bad this season. There are 8 freshman on the roster as Mike Rhoades goes for the hard reboot. They aren't playing to win this year. That's still no excuse for this schedule. Before every season begins, every Big Ten program should think they have a shot of making noise. Perhaps they can surprise some people and make a case for a NCAA tournament appearance. That won't happen with this non-conference schedule. This schedule represents nothing more than the firm lack of belief in Penn State basketball for the 2025-26 season.

The 18th ranked team in the big ten is playing an 18th ranked team's non-con. I'll allow it. If they turn out to be decent and the non-con is what keeps them out of the tournament, so be it.

- Penn State fan

I forgot to ask people if I could quote them ahead of time. That or I'm letting them remain anonymous for their own protection.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights

Rivals played: 1
In-state teams played: 2/7
Neutral site games: 3
Road games: 1
Quality competition: 4?
Sub 300 competition: 4

There's a definite step up here from the Penn State tier. Rutgers has fourish quality games on the schedule. Three of them are in Vegas at the Player's Era Festival in Tennessee, Notre Dame, and TBD (could be anyone from Houston to UNLV although I'd bet closer in quality to the latter).

The game at Seton Hall also qualifies as a quality opponent per our criteria. The Pirates were abysmal last season, but it's a road game and they very well could beat Rutgers so let's go ahead and say it's a "good" game.

The issue with Rutgers' schedule is there is nothing of value after Seton Hall for fans to get excited about that doesn't involve a trip to the desert. If movies have taught us anything about people from New Jersey and trips to Vegas, it's that it doesn't always end well.

The cupcakes here are incredibly fattening. High calorie, low nutritional value. At least most of them can bus to Piscataway.

It's a real shame that Rutgers and Princeton aren't playing. While I didn't expect this series to continue following the Tigers defeat of Rutgers in 2023 and 2024, those were very entertaining games as a neutral observer. This was an annual series up until 2013. Rutgers is walking away from one of their few rivals in order to play Central Connecticut State?

It's also noticeable that Rutgers isn't attempting to play any of their old Big East conference mates (outside of in-state foe Seton Hall and MTE paired opponent Notre Dame). Syracuse, Georgetown, and Villanova wouldn't pick up the phone? Did you even try to call them?

Rutgers is going to be pretty bad so they need as many bites at the Apple as possible

-Rutgers fan

Yeah, can you potentially give Rutgers an F

-Rutgers fan

Minnesota Golden Gophers

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

The Gophers enter year 1 of the Niko Medved era with a friendly schedule chalk full of wins for a rebuilding program. It just isn't a schedule that will sell many season tickets. Frankly, I'd ask for my money back.

Minnesota plays all four meaningful non-conference games away from the Barn. They travel to Mizzou and their MTE is in California. Meanwhile a game against San Francisco will be played in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

There are no good home games. Literally not a single opponent that I would buy a ticket for as a Gopher fan. Torvik lists four sub-300 opponents as Gopher opponents, but I fully expect Doug Gottlieb's Green Bay Phoenix to make it five. The man could coach his team to a loss against our "writers".

What probably angers me the most about this schedule is the exhibition games. The Gophers play North Dakota and North Dakota State in unofficial games. Neither basketball program is great, but either would be the most interesting basketball home game on the schedule - especially North Dakota due to the hockey rivalry.

The St. Thomas Tommies enter year 5 of Division 1 play still waiting for their first game against their only fellow in-state Division 1 competition. I suspect they will continue waiting someone else from Minnesota joins Division 1.

It's a new start under Medved and an opportunity to inject some much needed energy into Gophers basketball. Instead we get this stale gruel shoved at us. Shockingly this is actually better than last season's Minnesota schedule. I'm not sure why Gophers basketball fans put up with this.

I'd put in a poll, but I'm still figuring out how to do so in this editor. Give me a week or two. Tell us in the comments what you think of these schedules and which games you are looking forward to seeing.

Next week: Barring a late change of heart, six teams will receive some sort of C. Can you guess which B1G programs BoilerUp89 is disappointed in?