basketball scheduling

The two programs today put out press releases with several scheduling updates. Our future schedules page lives here.

Football announced a few non-conference items for 2024-2029.

• They flipped the Texas home-and-home. The 2024 game is now in Ann Arbor, and Michigan visits Austin in 2027.
• Western Michigan will be the opener again for 2026 and 2029.
• They added UTEP as a nonconference opponent in 2026.

Basketball got their Big Ten schedule for next year.

• Home-and-homes with MSU, Illinois, Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State, Iowa, and Nebraska
• Home only vs Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota
• Road only vs Maryland, Northwestern, and Penn State

[We'll discuss after THE JUMP]

If you're signed up for the program's emails this just came in:

We already knew they're playing in Brooklyn, the two ACC games plus Kentucky in London. The rest:

FERRIS STATE, Friday 11/4: The Bulldogs won the D-II national championship in 2018 and went 22-9 last season, not counting exhibition losses to Michigan State (92-58) and Xavier (100-59). They won both games against Wayne State, Michigan's exhibition opener last year, 104-73 and 75-60.

PURDUE FORT WAYNE, Monday 11/7: Went 15-6 in the Horizon League and were #237 in Kenpom. Every contributor except their high-usage #2 guard is back, including SF Jarred Godfrey (slash line: 53/38/81) and tiny PG Damian Chong Qui, who initiate most of the offense. Their center is former Vermont big Ra Kpedi, who's paint-bound, 6'9" and relies on putbacks. Their defense goes for turnovers a lot.

EMU, Friday 11/11 at Little Caesar's Arena: Ungh. Taking two Washtenaw County teams to the LCA feels like such a waste, especially when one of them is a 5-15 MAC team ranked #316 in Kenpom. That is better than the other directionals, not better than UofD Mercy or Oakland University. The Yggles added Emoni Bates but return only PG Noah Farrakhan, who transferred from ECU and hit 39% of his threes, and swatting 6'10" big Mo Njie from last year's contributors. They also have a wing who played half their minutes and slashed 42/13/62. Transfers from Georgetown and Providence don't register. At least this should end Michigan fans' obsession with Emoni.

OHIO, Sunday 11/20: Decent (#134 Kenpom) team that went 14-6 in the MAC in Jeff Boals's third season. Those Bobcats had a better record than the one that upset Virginia in the tournament the year before. Of that team they retain Just-a-Shooter SG Miles Brown, SF Ben Roderick, who had a huge comedown last year, and C Dwight Wilson, who missed last year for an injury, but lose Ben Vander Plas, the boxscore-filling stretch big who led them the last couple of years.

JACKSON STATE, Wednesday 11/23: Grindy SWAC team that could not score last year and lost their short 'n burly frontcourt to the transfer portal. Probably going to be bad but entertaining thanks to an "it's going up" guy named Gabe Watson (33% usage, 97 ORtg), who is not THAT Gabe Watson. Biggest guy on the roster is 6'8".

LIPSCOMB, Tuesday 11/29: Feisty Atlantic Sun team that runs EVERYTHING through burly center Ahsan Asadullah, who is 6'9" and looks like an offensive tackle, but will step out and shoot a three. He's got a couple of decent friends in W Jacob Ognacevic, who showed a knack for getting into the lane as a freshman, and PG Will Pruitt, a 39% three-point shooter who can get himself to the line.

CENTRAL MICHIGAN, Friday 12/30: Ranked under EMU last year (#318) but probably better than them this year. High-tempo team that takes a lot of jumpers. Sacrificed JAS Cam Healy to the portal and C Harrison Henderson to graduation, but return otherwise intact and expecting a big step forward from PG Kevin Miller, who proved an able setup man and volume scorer (99.2 ORtg despite settling for lots of contested 2PJs) as a freshman last year. 6-11 French center Nicolas Pavrette is another sophomore, and had a decent year as Henderson's backup.

THOUGHTS: Meh again, though it's not their fault the directional Michigan teams haven't been any good lately.

Ohio is the most difficult, and Michigan might be a big sluggish since that's the Sunday after they return from back-to-back games in Brooklyn on Wednesday-Thursday. Quality of opponents isn't that important anymore thanks to fixes in recent years in how they handle RPI, and Michigan has plenty of opportunities in the conference and Virginia/UNC/Kentucky games, so I'm not worried about tournament repercussions.

From a season ticket holder perspective, Virginia on a Tuesday (the one after football @ Ohio State) and a bunch of MAC/Horizon schools is a pretty weak home schedule, but I do appreciate the trolling job of having Ohio visit the week before the Cavs. We'll all share memories! From a "please don't interfere with football!" perspective, they did well—these are mostly Sunday or weekday games, and the one Friday night in Detroit is when Nebraska fans are in town.

The Big Ten just announced a suite of schedule changes which are likely final as long as no one has to shut down again. The upshot for Michigan: Iowa's moving up and they've rescheduled the Illinois and MSU games that were postponed. Michigan schedule down the stretch is now:

• Sunday, Feb 21: @ OSU
• Thursday, Feb 25: Iowa
• Saturday, Feb 27: @ Indiana
• Tuesday, March 2: Illinois
• Thursday, March 4: MSU
• Sunday, March 7: @ MSU

The PSU, Northwestern, and Indiana games that Michigan missed while on pause are in all likelihood not getting rescheduled.

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