The Big Ten releases Ohio State basketball schedule for the 2025-2026 season

Someone sound the alarm! The Ohio State basketball team has a fully finalized schedule for the 2025-2026 College Basketball season!

There was only one thing the Ohio State basketball team still needed while getting ready for the upcoming College Basketball season. We knew the non-conference slate and its exhibition against Ohio in October, and as of Thursday, the Big Ten released the conference schedule, completing the Buckeyes 'schedule.

Now that we have the full Ohio State basketball schedule, let's take a deep dive into the 20-game conference schedule:

The first schedule nugget to note is that there will be more home Saturday conference games this season, with two games (Jan. 17th vs UCLA, Mar. 7th vs Indiana). One of Jake Diebler's biggest gripes from last season was not having one Saturday home game, so it's nice to see the Big Ten respected his wishes for the 25-26 schedule.

The Buckeyes get their Big Ten play started in December, jumping out of non-conference, like they've been doing in recent seasons, opening on the road against Northwestern and then turning around to take on Illinois and Brad Underwood's squad in the home conference opener on December 9th.

Another difference from last season's schedule, instead of making the west coast trip at the end of February, the Ohio State basketball team will be knocking out that road trip at the beginning of January. They will visit the two west coast Big Ten programs they didn't travel to last season, with Oregon and Washington, while hosting UCLA and USC this season.

The month of February will be extremely difficult, especially the second half of it, when Jake Diebler's squad will host Wisconsin, make road trips to Michigan State and Iowa, and then welcome Purdue to begin March. The Buckeyes will finish the regular season at home on March 7th, hosting Indiana.

For home games, Ohio State will welcome to Columbus the following: Illinois, Nebraska, UCLA, Minnesota, Penn State, Michigan, USC, Wisconsin, Purdue, and Indiana.

As for all the road trips the Buckeyes will make, the following: Northwestern, Rutgers, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa, and Penn State.

In this 20-game conference slate, each team will play every Big Ten team while playing three teams twice. This year, the Ohio State basketball team will play both home and away against Michigan, Wisconsin, and Penn State.

Along with releasing the conference schedule, the Big Ten also announced changes to the Big Ten Tournament by expanding to include all 18 teams. Last season, the conference tournament featured the top 15 teams while leaving the bottom three out of the field, which were Nebraska, Penn State, and Washington.

The expansion to include all 18 teams adds another day to the tournament, with seeds 15 through 18 in the final Big Ten regular-season standings playing in two games on Tuesday of conference tournament week. Seeds 9 through 14 will receive a bye and begin play on Wednesday, following the usual tournament structure of Wednesday through Sunday.

We are still waiting for the tip times and channels the games will be on, but knowing the full schedule is now set just means we are one step closer to another Ohio State basketball season!