Ohio State Basketball to take on Virginia on Valentine's Day

The Ohio State basketball team continues to finalize their non-conference schedule for the 2025-26 season, reports suggest they've added another quality opponent to the schedule. However, this won't be your traditional non-conference game.

According to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, the Ohio State Basketball team will meet Virginia in a matchup between Power Conferences on Valentine's Day next season.

This is a very interesting matchup for lots of reasons, the most notable being that this game is set to be played in mid-February. The Buckeyes will jump out of Big Ten play for a non-conference game, getting in with the trend we've seen in College Basketball the past couple of seasons of February non-conference games.

Norlander reported that this game will be played at a neutral site that is feasible for both Ohio State and Virginia fans. The host for the one-off game in February is still to be determined.

It's also worth mentioning that both the Buckeyes and Cavaliers are being looked at in College Basketball as two programs with aspirations to get back to the NCAA Tournament. Both programs have been busy this offseason with the roster construction Jake Diebler has had to manage, and Virginia is preparing to begin its post-Tony Bennett era with Ryan Odom's first year at the helm after bringing him over from VCU. This game being played just before March could be a game to help increase one of their chances of getting back to the Big Dance.

Non-conference games in February used to be common in College Basketball, but they went away, and now it's coming back. I like that Jake Diebler is interested in joining the trend with a game that will likely have NCAA Tournament implications. He just needs to make sure that it's a game that he can actually win,