MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Badgers officially know the full path they will have to navigate if they want to hoist a Big Ten regular-season championship trophy.
The league announced its conference schedule for its 20 member institutions Thursday afternoon. It has the Badgers opening conference play at home against Northwestern on December 3, restarting conference play on January 3 with a home game against Purdue and finishing the regular season with a road trip on March 7 to Purdue.
Wisconsin will play seven teams only at home (Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Northwestern, Rutgers, UCLA, and USC), seven teams only on the road (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Penn State, and Washington) and three schools home and away (Minnesota, Ohio State, and Purdue).
Entering his 11th season leading the program, head coach Greg Gard has a vastly different roster than the one that finished 27-10 and earned a third-seed in the NCAA Tournament last March. The Badgers graduated six seniors, including All-American wing John Tonje, and saw another five players transfer.
While retaining junior center Nolan Winter and guard John Blackwell, the Badgers signed two high school seniors, two international players, and five seniors from the transfer portal. Included from the latter group is in-state point guard Andrew Rohde (Brookfield) and point guard Nick Boyd, who led Florida Atlantic to the Final Four in 2023 and picked the Badgers over North Carolina this offseason.
“He’s really vocal, he’s positive, he holds guys accountable, he holds himself accountable, he works everyday in the weight room,” Gard said of Boyd. “He’s just at another level in terms of the matrurity and the leadership that he brings. That’s what you want, specifically when you have that from your point guard.”
Here are the biggest takeaways from the schedule reveal:
Early challenges
The Badgers will play a pair of early December conference games sandwiched around its annual in-state game against Marquette on December 6, starting with a home matchup against the Wildcats and a road game to Nebraska on December 10.
Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli is the conference’s leading returning scorer at 20.5 points per game (Blackwell is tied for fourth at 15.8 ppg) and Nebraska has beaten Wisconsin the last two times in Pinnancle Bank Arena. However, both teams finished last season 7-13 in conference and are not projected NCAA Tournament squads.
Regardless of who the opponents were, the games add to a challenging stretch for the Badgers with seven straight games against Power-Conference schools. Four of those games will be considered neutral site games, albeit the Badgers will be playing BYU in Salt Lake City and Villanova in Milwaukee.
The good news is the Badgers have faired well in their early season conference games. Since the Big Ten went to early season Fall conference games in the 2017-18 season, Wisconsin is 8-5 with 2-0 records in 2018-19 and 2022-23.
West Coast swing
With the addition of Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington to the conference before last season, the Big Ten paired UCLA/USC and Oregon/Washington together in an effort to limit travel. The league also limited schools to only one West Coast trip per season.
After visiting Los Angeles last January, the Badgers will head to the Pacific Northwest in February for games at Oregon on the 25th and Washington on the 28th.
The Badgers split against the two opponents at home last season, blowing a 17-point lead in an 77-73 overtime loss to the Ducks before beating the last-place Huskies three days later, 88-62.
Wisconsin has won both of its games at Oregon, most recently in the 2023 NIT quarterfinals, and lost its only road game in Seattle in 1955.
On its first conference West Coast trip last January, the Badgers beat USC, 84-69, before losing to UCLA.
Tough February road stretch
The trip to Oregon and Washington will conclude a February where Wisconsin will be logging plenty of travel miles.
Five of Wisconsin’s seven road games in February will be on the road with games at Indiana (Feb.7), Illinois (Feb.10), and Ohio State (Feb.17) before heading to the coast.
UW will also host Michigan State, last year’s regular-season Big Ten champion, on February 13.
Of Wisconsin’s final nine conference games after January 31, six will be on the road.
Late January opportunities
Gard often says there are no “get-well” games in the Big Ten, but the Badgers have a chance to do some damage in late January with six consecutive games against teams that finished last season with double-digit conference losses (Minnesota x2, Rutgers, at Penn State, USC, Ohio State).
The Badgers went 5-1 against those teams last season.
Wisconsin Men’s Basketball 2025-26 Schedule
Friday, Oct. 24 – vs. Oklahoma (Exhibition at Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee)
Tuesday, Oct 29 – UW-Platteville (Exhibition)
Monday, Nov 3 – Campbell
Friday, Nov 7 – Northern Illinois
Tuesday, Nov 11 – Ball State
Monday, Nov 17 – SIUE
Friday, Nov 21 – vs BYU (Salt Lake City)
Thursday, Nov. 27 – Rady’s Children Invitational (San Diego)
Friday, Nov. 28 – Rady’s Children Invitational (San Diego)
Wednesday, Dec 3 – Northwestern
Saturday, Dec 6 – Marquette
Wednesday, Dec 10 – at Nebraska
Friday, Dec 19 – vs. Villanova (at Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee)
Monday, Dec 22 – Central Michigan
Wednesday, Dec 30 – Milwaukee
Saturday, Jan 3 – Purdue
Tuesday, Jan 6 – UCLA
Saturday, Jan 10 – at Michigan
Tuesday, Jan 13 – at Minnesota
Saturday, Jan 17 – Rutgers
Thursday, Jan 22 – at Penn State
Sunday, Jan 25 – USC
Wednesday, Jan 28 – Minnesota
Saturday, Jan 31 – Ohio State
Saturday, Feb 7 – at Indiana
Tuesday, Feb 10 – at Illinois
Friday, Feb 13 – Michigan State
Tuesday, Feb 17 – at Ohio State
Sunday, Feb 22 – Iowa
Wednesday, Feb 25 – at Oregon
Saturday, Feb 28 – at Washington
Wednesday, March 4 – Maryland
Saturday, March 7 – at Purdue
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