Big Ten basketball schedules revealed: How will conference matchups work with 18 teams?

For the first time as an 18-school entity, the Big Ten unveiled its men’s and women’s basketball schedules. Each school’s opponents were announced in early May, and the conference revealed the dates of those matchups Thursday.

The league will maintain a 20-game schedule for men’s basketball. Every school plays 14 teams once and three teams twice. The league selected each teams’ three double-play opponents based on multiple factors, including rivalry status, geography and national prominence.

Each Eastern and Central time-zone school will take one trip to the West Coast where they will play two games over a four-day period. To ease travel, each of those 14 schools travel to either Oregon and Washington or USC and UCLA.

For the West Coast teams traveling east, three of the single-play trips include back-to-back games within close proximity. Washington and Oregon, for instance, bundle games to Ohio State-Penn State, Michigan-Michigan State and Iowa-Wisconsin. Both schools’ only one-game trip east takes place in Minnesota. USC and UCLA bundle trips to Maryland-Rutgers, Illinois-Indiana, Purdue-Northwestern while both take single trips to Nebraska.

None of the West Coast schools will play outside of the Pacific time zone in December.

In women’s basketball, there are 18 Big Ten games. Each team plays 16 of the other teams once and has a designated rivalry opponent to play twice. Those double-play series include 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 schools will bundle all six games into three trips to the Eastern and Central time zones. Like the men, all Eastern and Central time-zone women’s teams will travel west just once with two games over a four-day period.

For both the men and women, the single-play locations flip for the 2025-26 season. The double-play opponents will remain in place through that season as well.

Both Big Ten tournaments take place in Indianapolis, and the top 15 teams qualify. The men’s tournament is slated for March 12-16, while the women’s tournament is scheduled for March 5-9.

Required reading

(Photo: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)