The Wisconsin men’s and women’s basketball teams shared their conference schedules to social media Thursday as part of the Big Ten Network’s 2025-26 schedule unveiling.
Both schedules contain some early Big Ten action, with men’s squeezing two games into the non-conference schedule, and women’s playing an early Big Ten game before conference season officially starts, just after Christmas.
The three early Big Ten games take place within a week, with each team starting the conference gauntlet with a home game. The men’s team hosts Northwestern on Dec. 3, and the women’s team hosts Michigan State just days later Dec. 7. Dec. 10, the men’s team will face Nebraska on the road, the final game before a break in the conference schedule for both teams.
When conference play resumes late December and early January for the women’s and men’s programs respectively, both men’s head coach Greg Gard and first-year women’s head coach Robin Pingeton will face different challenges.
The men’s team will play nine games in January alone, six of them taking place at the Kohl Center. One away game will be at Michigan, a favorite to be one of the conference’s top teams, but the other two are at Minnesota and Penn State, who finished 12th and 17th in the Big Ten a season ago, respectively.
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Of January’s home games for the men’s team, the slate features national-title contender Purdue on Jan. 3, and UCLA a few days later Jan. 6. The Badgers will have the opportunity to start the Big Ten season strong with a handful of home games, including a few chances for big wins against teams expected to compete for the league crown.
While Gard and his team should enjoy the first half of the schedule, six of the final nine games are on the road, including a trip out west to play Oregon and Washington in late February. To close the year, the Badgers will travel to the always-tough Mackey Arena to face Purdue.
On the women’s side, the schedule also features a late trip out west. Unfortunately for Coach Pingeton’s group, the trip will be the only opportunities to play USC and UCLA who were the top two teams in the conference last season.
Ohio State and Maryland, which placed third and fourth in the conference a year ago, are also opponents which Wisconsin will only play away. Not having any of the league’s best four teams from the 2024-25 season at home is a daunting challenge for Pingeton in year one, but also means plenty of winnable games at home.
The lone team the women’s program will face twice in its 18-game schedule is Minnesota, and the team will close the regular season with a home game against Iowa
The men’s team will look to build on success from a year ago, while the women’s team aims to start strong in the Pingeton era. Now with an official conference schedule, both teams know what stands between them and their end-of-season goals.