Arizona men’s basketball received a backloaded Big 12 home schedule this season, with Texas Tech, BYU, Kansas and Iowa State all assigned to visit McKale Center over the final four weeks of the conference season.
Though the Big 12 had already determined the Wildcats would face Kansas, BYU and ASU both home and away next season — each team has only three “double play” opponents in the reduced 18-game conference schedule — the Big 12 finalized the dates of its league schedule Tuesday.
Arizona forward Koa Peat (10) earns a lay-up for the offense during a partially-open practice at Richard Jefferson Gymnasium, Aug. 12, 2025.
Texas Tech will play at Arizona on Feb. 14, while BYU will visit on Feb. 18, Kansas on Feb. 28 and Iowa State on March 2. The Iowa State game will be a part of ESPN’s “Big Monday” package, as will UA’s Jan. 26 game at BYU and Feb. 9 game at Kansas.
While the Wildcats will have to squeeze in a game at conference favorite Houston during their late-season grind, they have little to complain about overall with the path for what will be their second run through the Big 12.
Because the league dropped from 20 to 18 games this season, the Wildcats were given a full week break in the middle of conference play, between a Jan. 31 game at ASU and a Feb. 7 home contest with Oklahoma State.
Arizona’s travel is also minimal, at least relative to the Big 12’s vast footprint. The Wildcats will be able to play all but five of their conference games within the Mountain Time Zone and can reach all away games except UCF with a charter flight of 2½ hours or less.
The Wildcats will have to take three separate trips into the Rockies (to face Utah, BYU and Colorado), but the schedule also will allow them to combine games at Houston and Baylor into a single trip in late February.
And while the Wildcats will have to fly to Orlando to play at UCF, they won’t have anything as demanding as their first Big 12 road trip last season, when they played at Cincinnati and West Virginia over a four-day period amid low temperatures and snowstorms.
Arizona wound up sweeping that trip, its first road swing in its new conference, and went 14-6 and tied for third place with BYU.
Despite playing 20 games last season, Arizona only played Kansas once, at Lawrence, Kan., and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said that the conference would reconsider a double-play series for what had been a major rivalry throughout the Lute Olson era at UA.
“It wasn’t easy when you think about the different matchups and the depth of the conference, but we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and think about that,” Yormark said before last season. “That’s a marquee matchup, as we all know, and one the fans want to see.”
If preseason expectations hold up, the Arizona-BYU games could be even more pivotal. The Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll has not been released yet, although BYU was ranked No. 6 in ESPN’s early Top 25, while Arizona (7) and BYU (8) were ranked in the Top 10 of EvanMiya.com’s analytics-based rankings.
In June, UA coach Tommy Lloyd indicated there would be challenges however the schedule played out.
“Kansas is a great team. I mean, come on, they ran the Big 12 for a lot of years, but I think we all know who’s running the Big 12 now, and it’s some school over there in East Texas,” Lloyd said, referring to the Cougars.
“So we’ve got our eyes on everybody. Obviously Arizona and Kansas playing is a great thing ... it’s great that they’re coming here for our fans but it’s going to be a tough 18-game deal.”
UA’s home schedule also includes a Jan. 21 date with Cincinnati, which will bring former UA guard Kerr Kriisa back to McKale. Since transferring from Arizona in 2023, Kriisa has played for West Virginia, Kentucky and now Cincinnati.
Arizona guard Kerr Kriisa celebrates after draining a long-range 3-pointer against Southern in the second half of their game at McKale Center on Nov. 11, 2022. Kerr notched a triple-double, the second of his UA career.
Kansas State and Oklahoma State will also visit McKale next season after only hosting UA last season, while the Wildcats will play Baylor, UCF, Colorado, Houston, TCU, Utah only away from home.
With the addition of the Big 12 dates, Arizona’s 2025-26 conference schedule is complete, though its planned Nov. 29 game against Norfolk State is still pending approval from the NCAA.
UA’s scheduled games against Denver (Nov. 24) and Norfolk State are part of its “Wildcat Classic” multi-team event, as are Wyoming’s home games against Norfolk State (Nov. 23) and Denver (Nov. 26).
Teams play in or create their own multi-team events (MTEs) so they can max out their regular season schedules at 31 games, instead of just playing 28 or 29 without an MTE. But NCAA rules mandate that MTEs in which teams play twice each must be completed within five days, meaning UA would have to play a second game by Nov. 28 since the event technically starts on Nov. 23.
However, UA’s volleyball team is hosting Cincinnati on Nov. 28 at McKale while the Wildcat football team is playing at ASU that evening, so UA has filed a waiver request with the NCAA to host Norfolk State on Nov. 29.
