UCLA still doesn’t quite know its travel route around the Big Ten next season, but the men’s basketball program did at least learn Tuesday morning where it will head in the 2025-26 season.
The Bruins, who are entering their second year in the league, will play road games at Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin to go with three home-and-home series against crosstown rival USC, Oregon and Washington.
The 20-game slate will also include home games against Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and Rutgers.
In other words, every home and road league game from last season’s schedule got flipped around outside of the three Pac-12 legacy series.
Last season, much was made about the rigorous conference travel, with head coach Mick Cronin noting how often his team saw the Statue of Liberty as flights landed in New York.
“Lucky for us, don’t gotta go to Indiana next year, we don’t gotta go to Maryland,” UCLA wing Eric Dailey Jr. said ahead of the release last Wednesday during a name, image and likeness event on campus. “We get a chiller [road] schedule next year.
“It’s not that healthy…flying to the east coast so many times. … We should be more prepared, body-wise, know how it feels.”
Added guard Trent Perry: “It will be a lighter traveling schedule, but the teams are no joke.”
Dates and tip-off times will be announced at a later date in the fall.
Six of the 10 schools headed to Pauley Pavilion have not done so since prior to 2000. Maryland and UCLA had a recent home-and-home series that included a December 2023 meeting in Los Angeles.
Four of the schools — Nebraska, Rutgers, Indiana and Northwestern — haven’t played a road contest against UCLA in more than 40 years. Neither Indiana nor Northwestern have played inside Pauley Pavilion.
It will be similar for the Bruins when they hit the road. They have not traveled to Minnesota, Ohio State or Wisconsin since the 1960s. UCLA’s last contest at Iowa was in December 1990.