New Era of Aggressive College Basketball Scheduling Is Here

A compelling November around college basketball owes some of its intrigue to Michigan prep hoops.

“Going all the way back to my high school days,” said Alabama head coach Nate Oats last week, “Everybody made the state playoffs. So, what’s the point of going 20-0…[when] you get to the end of your 20 regular-season games and everybody starts brand new where you draw out of a hat [to determine an opponent] in the state tournament?”

Emphasizing preparedness for the best competition come postseason over an inflated record for seeding purposes served Oats well at Romulus High School, and has contributed to the Crimson Tide’s rise in the coach’s six seasons at the helm.

Alabama has played a top four-ranked strength of schedule in each of the previous three seasons, with 2025-26 promising more of the same. After opening with North Dakota, the Crimson Tide face a gauntlet of four straight top 25-ranked opponents including preseason No. 1 Purdue.

Matchups at No. 5 St. John’s, a virtual road game against No. 17 Illinois in Chicago and with No. 21 Gonzaga in Las Vegas for the Players Era Championship bookend the top-ranked Boilermakers’ visit to Tuscaloosa. All are played before Thanksgiving when, just a generation ago, the college basketball season was only just beginning.

Oats’ scheduling philosophy looks increasingly like the standard more than the ambitious outlier, too, making for a November that promises every bit as exciting as March.

Alabama will have plenty of competition for the top strength of schedule in 2025-26, including from opponents on the Tide’s schedule.

On Dec. 13, Arizona heads to Birmingham to face Alabama in a virtual road game. By the time the Wildcats visit the Yellow Hammer State, they will have already seen:

• No. 3 Florida in Las Vegas on Nov. 4
• No. 12 UCLA at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, on Nov. 14
• No. 4 UConn in Hartford on Nov. 19
• No. 20 Auburn in Phoenix on Dec. 6

Arizona’s season-opening encounter with Florida marks the first time a Wildcats team opens against a defending national champion since 1989 when UA tipped off with a win over Michigan.

The timing is noteworthy, falling right in the heart of Arizona’s rise under the late Lute Olson, and stands as testament to the Oats philosophy not being entirely new.

At the tail end of his career in 2005, Olson explained his approach to non-conference scheduling to KUSports.com:

“I’ve always been of the opinion you learn from playing the best competition you can play. I say I’d rather lose one by one or two (points) than win one by 40. …I want us to be tested, to see what we need to do better. The only way to do that is to play tough competition,” Olson said.

Tommy Lloyd became Arizona’s head coach in 2021, one year after Olson’s death and 14 after the Hall of Famer coached his final game. While physically removed, Lute’s presence is always felt around Tucson and one way in which Lloyd’s honored that past is through his own scheduling philosophy.

“Testing your team is important,” Lloyd told reporters in June. “We’re going to continue to push the envelope with our schedule and challenge our team, and hopefully it’s a team that’s prepared to play good basketball in March.”

Lloyd came to Arizona via Gonzaga, a program that has consistently scheduled some of the most ambitious non-conference games dating back to the Zags’ first Elite Eight run in 1999.

Gonzaga’s hard-nosed scheduling under Mark Few may have been born of necessity, as the Zags fought both for respect and to build on the momentum established during initial Cinderella runs. But even since settling into its current role as a perennial Top 25 program, Gonzaga continues to play one of the more demanding early slates in the nation.

This year, that means facing No. 23 Creighton, heading to Vegas for the Players Era Championship, drawing No. 9 Kentucky in Nashville, UCLA in Seattle, and NCAA Tournament fixture Oregon in Portland just before Christmas.

And across the sport, it’s more of the same. UConn coach Dan Hurley may never want to visit Hawai’i on Thanksgiving week again, but the 2024-25 Huskies’ stumble at the Maui Invitational didn’t stop the 2023 and 2024 national champions from facing BYU, Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Florida and Texas in a span of four weeks.

The result of all this heavyweight scheduling could be one of the most exciting first months of college basketball in recent memory.