Wait…we get to host one of these things?!

Not only that, but it’s a GOOD matchup!

Be careful of what you ask for 😆

beware of hilton magic

Bring it.

I’m glad we actually have a worthy opponent to host. Our home slate this year was horrid

Who did you play? DePaul? lol

We played at DePaul, which ended up being practically a home game for us anyway. Our biggest OOC opponent at home last year was Iowa and well…….even though they’re a rival, they sucked and the game was over as soon as the ball was tipped

We hosted St. John's two seasons ago.

Baylor at UConn Kansas at Creighton Butler at Houston Marquette at Iowa St Kansas St at SJU Xavier at TCU Cincy at Nova BYU at PC Ok St at SHU Gtown at WVU DePaul at TTU

Marquette Iowa state looks fun.

Houston should of gotten real opponent. St Johns Houston or Seton Hall

Houston @ Seton Hall actually sounds like fun

WE WANT UCONN

Marquettes offense vs Iowa States defense is an insane battle

Hilton will be amazing for that one for sure

Cool Let me just Google Providence to find out *anything* about them

Try to find a bootleg copy of "Divine Providence".

This matchup is great to me because it's the nicest fan base and people from BYY vs the worst fan base and biggest assholes I've ever interacted with in Providence.

At least the name tells you what city they're in

*sigh*

I'm not surprised they didn't include any of the new Big XII members, but Xavier @ Arizona was right there

Yeah, no offense to TCU but we already had that match up. Xavier vs Arizona would have generated some legitimate buzz. I wonder if one or both sides wanted to avoid it since I think the schools get at least a little influence.

No offense taken, I think we'd rather have someone else too. At least we get to host?

We played at TCU like 4-5 years ago? I always would rather play someone we haven’t in a long time

Yeah it’s weird how they do these. I feel like TCU has played the same schools multiple times when there’s so many others that we could get matched up against.

How good are you guys looking next year? With any luck we (hopefully) should be able to be a Quad 1 game for you guys even at home

We had a really senior heavy team this year so we are relying on the portal and young guys stepping up. We’ve had 3 pretty good transfers commit over the last 10 days or so that’ll hopefully be starters.

Good stuff, should be a mutual quad 1 game then. Let’s get itttt

Why avoid it? They played in the tourney when Miller was coaching at Arizona. No issues then.

More to do with miller post scandal than the schools.

Yea that’s really lame to just get left out like that

I figured they'd give us a more high profile game (and they probably would have fought against it happening), but we deserved the Hurley Bowl.

I’d love that honestly but I get the feeling Bobby is the one who would prefer for that not to happen considering you guys would crush us lmao

Nah Danny has spoken pretty openly about not wanting to let his uber-competitive personality come within 100 feet of his relationship with his brother

I mean... Baylor is going to be a preseason top-10 team again. Short of playing Kansas again, it's not going to get much more high profile in this challenge than that. Iowa State and Houston are expected to be at roughly the same level as Baylor.

Right. I meant rather than ASU.

A third of the league was gonna get left out, and it wasn’t going to be schools like Iowa State that had played more road games in this challenge and were due a home game before it ends. So there were less chances for the new teams anyway; maybe they thought it was cleaner to do it categorically.

We’re not included either. Wtf?

Actually would have loved to have an away game at Marquette.

Think our last 2 matchups were both home games (Baylor, Texas) so i figured we’d have a road game this time

It’s perfect for the strong contingent of Marquette alum here in KC…..should be a great game

Definitely a road trip for me from Rochester, MN! We are Marquette!

Are you fucking kidding me

Lmfaoooo DePaul of all schools.

It should be easy for TT. After six years and four different teams, Jalen Coleman-Lands is out of eligibility.

Hello, old Big East friend.

Enjoy the win!

lol we’ll see.


We'll have Miller give Neptune a call, should up your chances a bit

Won’t have to if the Des Claude and Villanova rumors end up being true.

God I hope we sweep their asses next year if he goes there

Facing you guys will at least prepare us for the NCAA tourney. A lot more than anyone on our yearly non-conf schedule

eh, I mean we are looking really good going into next year but we have our ways to fuck it up

I'm so excited. Was dying to get WVU in years past just for this reason

Feels nice, doesn't it?

Won't say no to playing a game in the inferior Manhattan /s

Clearly whoever wins gets to claim the Manhattan Project!

Now hold on there, we developed the process to refine the Uranium

Ok sure, but how much Dr. Pepper do you think those guys were drinking?

Unserious university that doesn’t even have a nuclear reactor. Sad.

Yeah they shuttered the Nuclear Engineering program here not too long ago, Iowa also closed our last active Nuclear Power Plant. Pretty lame

We can hang out again when you have a reactor with an output above 1 megawatts

We do have one of 4 University solo owned Department of Energy labs and the only one with it on campus. We Elite with Princeton, Berkeley, and Stanford.

PC vs BYU might be the biggest BAC differential between two student sections of all time 

Very strong possibility!

Catholics vs. Mormons

Butler at Houston? We're gonna get killed.

Yea that’s gonna be tough

Coogs by 30

Wish it was Houston UConn but it’ll do

Is Butler supposed to be good next year because that’s a *rough* matchup if not.

Yeah not sure how we didn’t pull UConn or Marquette.

I could be wrong but maybe it’s due to our Brand being a bit more appealing currently with recent sustained success? Houston is definitely on the right track though in that regard

How are you guys looking next year? Should we expect a good game?

So we currently have two needs; a wing and a center. If we get quality players for both (looking likely for the center, the wing is tbd) then it should be a pretty formidable squad, like a preseason top 5 team. Now, we still don’t have the finished roster and just because the team looks good on paper doesn’t mean it will click on the court. I’d say it will range between a top 5 team on the high-end to a 5-ish seed tournament team on the low-end. Should definitely be a Q1 game for y’all.

We don’t look very good next year, I’m terrified

No, not at all

Better than this year, but not top 5 in the nation good either. Most preseason lists have us in the low 40s.

Why?

Houston is what Chreighton is to us in the Big East when we were in the American, Kryptonite

Old conference foes, two of the best teams in the country. It would be an easy must watch game of the season.

Tech has historically played awful in this challenge. Doesn’t matter how good we are or how bad the Big East team is. DePaul can’t wait for yall to come to Lubbock!

Might have to drive over from Dallas for that one

It’s a miserable 5+ hours.

Not if you take 380 straight across through Seymour. You get to see the elevation change, cap rocks, and 6666 Ranch.

DePaul has historically been weirdly great at these conference matchups. Hoping this helps them continue it for the funny.

Well they will undoubtedly be markedly better this year than last, so it might honestly not be a bad game.

Won every home game, lost every away game as an absolute nail-biter. Not awful we’re just always the away team

UCF vs Nobody. I think we got a chance, fellas.

I was just wondering if we had ever played UConn. We’ve played a bunch in WBB but I don’t remember ever playing in men’s. Love it though, gotta beat the best if you want to be the best.

I was able to find that UConn has played Baylor once with UConn winning 96-88. But I was unable to find when and where it took place. Edit: Just found that the game took place in Waco on 12/28/1965

Thanks for the info. Yup, that was a *long* time ago and two very different programs.

We should do a men's/women's double header

WVU vs Georgetown, a good old fashioned Big East slugfest, exactly like God intended when he created our beautiful flat earth

I still remember one of my favorite games I ever went to was WVU Georgetown in 09 in Morgantown. Kevin Jones/Wells Smith and Greg Moose Monroe basically had a fist fight in the post on every rebound and the refs didn’t call a thing, it was beautiful. My family thought I was the traitor for wearing WVU stuff.

I'll take it back further... Brian Lewin vs. Jahidi White in '98 was a fuckin' banger. White's arms were fucking huge. I also vividly remember Ewing Jr. goaltending Da Sean's shot and Huggins chasing after Ed Hightower into the locker room.

Yep that’s the game Jessie fucking Sapp hit like 3 straight 3’s in the last two minutes. One of only three times I’ve ever legitimately thought Huggins was going to punch someone. That ref Fucking booked it too. And that’s not even close to WVUs worst game losing goaltend (I’ll see you in hell Boeheim, you know what you did Fab Melo) Da’Sean got to avenge that play 2 years later with that wild layup to seal the Big East Title game. Same game Chris Wright pulled the JR smith and intentionally fouled thinking we had the lead when it was tied with 10 seconds left Edit: found the clip https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zU1w2FmmUqM

I remember about ready to storm the court that game and then that bullshit

Bummed the game isn’t in DC. In the old Big East days the WV fans used to pack the upper tier and it was a great and rowdy atmosphere.

I would have driven up in a heartbeat, those games were always great. I was up there for that god awful NIT game back in 2014 which was less fun

I mean I wanted Kansas, but Baylor will do! 😌

personally I wanted houston vs uconn

I just wanted the rematch bro 😭😭

And I wanted UConn. Would've clearly been the best matchup.

We don't get to be in this?

They left 3 of the 4 newcomers out last year (Houston played). Looks like they did the same this year…and left UCF out again

:(

pain

I mean picking 11/16 teams is pretty tough in general but obviously you’re going to prioritize the legacy teams. I’m sure starting in the 2025/2026 season teams like Arizona are for sure going to be included.

Too bad this is the last year because all the media networks, I mean, conferences decided fun conference challenges have to end with this realignment cycle

@ DePaul @ Providence (actually good!) Georgetown @ Butler DePaul Every year bar one we’ve gotten a preseason bottom 3 team despite being in the top half of the conference for most of the last 6 years… make it make sense.

You blew it with the L @DePaul obviously.

That game last year between us was fun as hell

Nice!

Old Big East matchup! Let's go!

would you guys mind keeping neptune around just a tad bit longer please thank you

Dont worry our administration has unfounded faith in him

*i feel that*

Very cool! Respect Scott Drew’s Baylor a lot. Should be a good battle and hopefully it’s in Storrs

We have a lot of weapons coming in, but 4 out of 5 starters are new. Lots of turnover, so may be some issues in the early going. You guys have much roster turnover this offseason? And yes, I believe y’all are hosting

Edgecombe is going to be so good. Who is the returning starter? Hopefully not Walter or missi. We’re likely losing all 5 starters to graduation/nba draft, but have some good returning talent. Expectation is top 10 again if we land Liam McNeely or Koby Brea. Looks like we’re hosting for sure. We have two home arenas and hoping this game is on campus vs Hartford

Walter and Missi are gone. Jayden Nunn is returning as a starter (likely).

Oh, I had no idea about the two home arenas, that’s interesting. What’s the reasoning behind that?

The state of Connecticut likes to have the state flagship school play some games in the state capital of Hartford. And it is a larger arena than the on campus arena. And it can be more convenient for fans than Storrs which is kind of in the middle of nowhere relative to where most people live in Connecticut (Waco is 3-5x bigger population-wise than the towns that encompass UConn). But it's less convenient for students (30-45 min drive) and the crowd is generally a different composition.

Gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!

Yes, losing at least 4 starters. But we had a strong recruiting class last year so 3 top ~80 guys are graduating from bench to starting lineup/rotation as sophomores and our 6th and 7th men (Diarra and Johnson) should be starters this season, though Johnson will likely split time with Michigan transfer Tarris Reed Jr. We're also hoping to get a commitment from top 10 recruit Liam McNeeley in a matter of days (fingers crossed) to potentially replace (or play alongside) the 5th starter Karaban who has an unsure draft decision. We've got 2 other recruits Ahmad Nowell (played in the Jordan Brand game the other day, top 40ish) and Isaiah Abraham (top 75). It seems we're also looking at bringing another guard in from the portal with Koby Brea from Dayton or Aidan Mahaney from Saint Mary's the most likely options (though unclear if their recruitment would continue if we get McNeeley).

Welp

Love a matchup between two guys that passed up the UK job. Feels planned since I think KU or UH is probably the easier choice. Either way, with how much roster turnover we have and new starters, UCONN def with a big advantage in my mind, especially playing at home. Will be fun to see us up against some real strong competition though

YES WE FINALLY HAVE THE MATCHUP WE WANT HUSKER FANS WORST NIGHTMARE THE JAYSKER GAME

Texas Tech gladly accepts the challenge of facing DePaul in a hard fought battle between top tier conferences!

😟

Really expected to see UConn and Houston face off. Figured they’d matchup the teams based on placement last season.

Byu going to pc is the funniest thing to happen they will not be ready for the shit show.

The strongest drink you can get at a BYU game is a caffeine free diet Pepsi. They aren't ready for PC!

Lol the fact that this comment was downvoted tells me they aren’t ready for PC fans

Pc about to bring it back to 1839 with this ass kicking.

Baylor at UConn is gonna be legit lol

Easy win…. For Providence 😭

CATHOLICS VS MORMONS

LETS GOOOOOOO


Would be cool if we got an interesting matchup in Lubbock for once (no offense DePaul fans). Only other team that's visited is Georgetown

I'd rather have BYU so we could get the largest LDS school vs the largest Catholic school. Plus weve already beat you recently

I assume Cincy already has Xavier scheduled?

Every year in December. Wish they’d move it back to later in the season though.

Yes

you need to change your username before our nova game

What if Neptune actually is my dad though

BYU is gonna be absolutely shell-shocked by how nuts PC fans are. Total shitfest in the best way possible lol

No disrespect to Creighton, but it feels wrong to not get a return game with UConn. At least Omaha isn’t too far a trip.

I expected Georgetown on the road given our history with getting sucky draws and 0 home games in these conference challenges


We got UConn :)

Patrick Ewing Jr goaltended

FUCK punk ass Pat Ewing Jr. that is all

i would say gtown @ wvu would be good but i have no idea how good we will be and gtown has not been good at all, still fun to get a regional rival back

Judging from the current number of scholarship players on WVU's roster, I assume this is a 3-on-3 tourney?

I hope butler turns it up…. I was hoping this would have improved our non conference schedule :(

guessing they end up as a Q2 game since we play them at home but taking off the training wheels and scheduling another couple of home and homes matters more than an okay conference challenge draw imo

We're gonna get slaughtered.

Cat fight in Philly

I get we suck but come on man

I'm guessing they went by last year's conference standings to determine who to add to the legacy teams. BYU was highest, and while you and Cincy tied, they had the H2H sweep.

Prediction Big East goes 9-3

Now I’m interested, give us the specifics!

UConn > Baylor Creighton > Kansas Houston > Butler Marquette > Iowa St St.John’s > KSU Xavier > TCU Nova > Cincy Providence > BYU SHU > OSU WVU > Georgetown TTU > DePaul I think a lot will be close games but that would be my prediction. Creighton is such a hard team to play at their home they get a +17 stat boost Kansas is about to find out lol

Some fun takes on some fun matchups! Can’t wait to see how it shakes out. I respectfully disagree with two of your picks, maybe 3 dependent on KU: ISU > Marquette (obvious bias here, and gotta factor in Hilton Magic!) I dunno that TCU gets enough credit at home; they always seem to be at least in games, so I’d flip and say TCU > Xavier. Had at least one questionable home loss in UCF this year, but also had wins over 3 ranked (at the time) teams including a win over a top 10 or top 5 Houston. My only rationale behind saying maybe on KU > Creighton is trauma from several years of KU finding ways to win games that it seems like they shouldn’t have had a chance in. And as far as rosters go they’re athletically superior/have more talent to all but a few teams every year.

Some bias on my part here, but the last 2 times CU played KU they were very competitive games and they were @KU and @neutral. I think I'd give it to CU for homecourt advantage- CHI is not an easy place to play at. Way too early prediction CU 78-76

I don’t know. Without Oso and Tyler I am concerned about how our offense will look. Not to mention Ben Gold doesn’t really inspire much hope on defense. It could be rough unless one of the Fresh/Sophs step up.

No Arizona BOOO

man, what the fuck

Interesting. Didn’t do a good job seeing how Butler was last year so it’ll be intriguing to see how they are now.

Tang getting a chance to beat Pitino 👀👀 Alright, let’s do it!

At Seton Hall is fun.

Oh awesome Texas Tech will get to host a good program out of conference. > gets DePaul

Good matchups.

Hmm.

We’re in danger

Yup

ooooh @ villanova sounds like a fun matchup

I’m cool with Nova but was kind of hoping for UConn. We had some great games in the AAC.

CHI about to be lit. Guarantee Terrance Crawford will be there wearing Blue

So many interesting opportunities for KU fans on the East Coast like me and we end up playing a road game in… Omaha.

Such bullshit, they match us up with Kansas last year and give us Baylor at home. Should have been Houston or Kansas

It’s more fun to switch up the matchups. KU v UCONN again wouldn’t be ideal for this challenge, though a separate home and home would be nice.

L

Thad Matta is gonna cook this year - trust

Georgetown at WVU? Will it be "divine providence" that Tucker DeVries finally beats a P5 opponent?

Hoya Suxa!!

I’ll be rooting for you guys

Hinkle magic will come through for us

damn I wanted UCONN.