2025-26 Season opponents

Schedule Updates
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Broncos in Palm Desert for Acrisure Series in Palm Desert over Thanksgiving

Ole Miss, Iowa, Washington added to Acrisure Classic as 2025 basketball field takes shape

Portrait of Shad PowersShad Powers

As the 2024-25 college basketball season draws to a close, it’s a good time to look ahead to next year and for desert college hoops fans that means the new Thanksgiving week staple – the Acrisure Series college basketball tournament at Acrisure Arena.

Some of the teams in the 2025 Acrisure Series have already been announced and more will be solidified in the coming weeks, but here’s what we know so far.

The 2025 Acrisure Series, which is Nov. 25-28, the Tuesday through Friday of Thanksgiving week, will feature more teams from “power conferences” than last year’s edition. Also there will be more men’s teams in general as the plan is to have four four-team mini-tournaments of men’s teams as opposed to three last year.

The field is rounding into shape and some of the teams that organizers are excited about are Ole Miss from the SEC and Iowa, Washington and Minnesota from the Big Ten. Mississippi was one of the top teams in the nation this year, advancing to the Sweet 16. Iowa and Minnesota will both be coming to Acrisure with a new coach and a new direction as they look to compete in the Big Ten, and Washington returns after having won a trophy at the 2024 Acrisure event.

Other teams that are confirmed to be in the 2025 field include multiple former Pac-12 members Stanford, Utah and Colorado, as well as top mid-major programs Northern Iowa, Tulsa, Loyola Chicago, Nevada, Santa Clara and San Francisco, as well as Southern California schools University of San Diego and Cal Baptist.

Grand Canyon, which made the NCAA Tournament and played in a spotlight game at last year’s Acrisure Classic, will return in 2025 as well.

“We’re excited about the field we’re putting together as Palm Springs has clearly become one of the top destinations in the country for holiday college basketball,” said co-tournament director Dan Shell, who added that primary sponsors Acrisure, Spotlight 29 Casino and Visit Greater Palm Springs have been integral to the event’s success. “And we expect to keep attracting strong fields in the years to come.”

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The field is not finalized as more teams will be added and the format will crystalize in the coming months as well as ticket availability.

Taking a look back at last year’s field in the context of the NCAA Tournament, eight of the 21 teams that participated in the 2024 Acrisure Series made this year’s NCAA Tournament. That group includes Saint Mary’s, New Mexico, Colorado State and Grand Canyon on the men’s side and USC, Michigan State, Vanderbilt and Cal in the women’s tournament.

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Good event, but it will depend on the quality of SCU’s specific field. They say more teams are still to be added, but I could 16 announced teams for 16 slots.

I would love a three-game bracket over just two. I’m not sure why most of the MTEs are just two game mini-brackets these days. A school like Santa Clara can use all the exposure to high major opponents it can get in the OOC, so more games in a quality MTE is better for SCU.

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https://x.com/RoccoMiller8/status/1923435300153380913

Going to Cincy to take on Richard Pitino and Xavier

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That’s a fun game! I’m in

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Rumor has it Nevada, McNeese St., and ASU are on the schedule as well. Sites TBD.

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ASU is apparently confirmed

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Anyone know when SCU will release their non-league schedule? Seeing many squads releasing their schedules this past week.

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Last year, Santa Clara was still adding games (the McNeese tilt) in August and released the full schedule slightly later. I would expect a similar timeline. SCU is always pretty late releasing their schedule.

Here’s what we are pretty sure we have so far based on announcements and likely return games from last season.

  • at Xavier
  • Nevada
  • McNeese
  • ASU (neutral – Jack Jones Classic)
  • at Fresno State
  • Acrisure Tournament Game 1
  • Acrisure Tournament Game 2

Decent Likelihood:

  • SJSU – Weird that the series went on hiatus. The game would be at Leavey if we were to pick up the series from two seasons ago.

Elevated possibility:

  • Cal – I think with the ACC switch, Cal would like to get decent local games given the amount of travel during conference play.
  • Stanford – Same as the above. Kyle Smith has publicly stated that he doesn’t like playing SCU but has still coached against Sendek 4 times since leaving the WCC (2-2).
  • UC Irvine – SCU and Irvine have met in OOC a handful of times in recent years, the last being the heartbreaker when Josip was riding the bench with mono. With Irvine perennially solid, I think the staff would at least give them a call.

I can’t remember how many OOC games there will be this season with the addition of Seattle and the news that the NCAA is adding 1 or 2 games to the maximum allowable per season. But usually it’s 13-14 games.

Seven games are pretty much spoken for. 6-7 left with at least 3-4 of those being home buy games against lesser teams. If Santa Clara gets one of the local ACC squads and UC Irvine, plus a good Acrisure draw, I think I’m pretty happy with the schedule.

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18games in the WCC again in 2025/26.

The matchups were released a few weeks ago; specific dates and times TBD.
So each team now has 4 single game opponents or 4 byes, however you prefer to view it.

Broncos single games are at home vs. Seattle and Pepperdine and away vs. WSU and Portland.

The WCC schedule was released a few wee

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It’s interesting that the WCC has only released matchups, not specific dates. What is the reason? Is it because Gonzaga (and perhaps SMC, WSU, OSU) want to schedule OOC games squeezed in during conference play? Or perhaps it is to allow time for each school to blackout home dates that have already been promised to other events?

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The loss to Stanford last season still stings. Thanks for reminding me :rofl: – and making me feel ill. :nauseated_face:

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I’d add negotiating television contracts for the games. I’m no expert in how all of tv rights work but my basic understanding is that ESPN gets first choice on all games for live broadcast as the WCC’s primary partner. Then CBS/Fox/NBC Bay Area can pick and choose the games that ESPN passes on. So my guess is that jockeying for maximum tv exposure plays a role in delaying the conference dates as well.

Re: Kyle Smith – Just an SCU nemesis for the past 10 years giving the Broncos a couple great wins (top-25 Wazzu in 2023; USF in the WCC Tournament in 2017) and awful losses (ending Jalen’s SCU career in the NIT; last year’s awful, awful Stanford loss).

I need like 3 straight solid wins over Stanford to feel like SCU has the better side of the Kyle Smith rivalry.

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It looks like the one-game expansion of the regular season is still just a proposal and would only take effect on 2026-27. So with 18 WCC games, SCU should have 13 OOC tilts including the two in Palm Springs.

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Update – it has been approved but starting 2026. The season will be expanded by one extra game to a 32-game maximum.

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Rumored that our Acrisure group includes Minnesota, St. Louis, and Stanford. Kyle Smith just can’t quit us…

Also rumored that Santa Clara will have a home/local neutral game against Loyola Chicago, but I haven’t seen that reported anywhere other than Rambler fans chattering about it.

Even if LCU is true, I’d like to see at least one more decent mid-major or high major opponent. Cal is the easiest one. UC Irvine makes a lot of sense. Northern Iowa is reported to be coming to SMC…maybe they’d want two games for their trip west?

Give me the 7ish games that we know so far, Loyola Chicago, one decent/good opponent, SJSU, and three buy games…that would be a very good SCU schedule, on par with last season which was the best in at least a decade.

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Santa Clara vs. St Louis in game 1.

Minnesota vs. Stanford in the other matchup.

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I see USD (Nov 25) and Pepp (Nov 26) have single games scheduled in between the “tourney” games. Then on Turkey Day, USF and SCU each play in their respective brackets, with “final” games on Friday Nov 28th. The reason I use quotation marks is because they are actually doing 4 separate 4-team tournaments across the 4 days of play (with the aforementioned USD and Pepp games squeezed in between). Thus, none of the WCC teams can end up playing each other. Interesting format.

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Santa Clara and Saint Louis reportedly had agreed to a home-and-home tilt before the Acrisure pods were announced. There’s at least a possibility that Santa Clara and SLU play twice in the OOC which would be weird, but not unwelcome. Think of it like having SLU as a WCC squad on loan for a season–an outcome that I think we would all welcome.

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Patty,
Good insights per usual.

As I used to say about ‘92 (before he got old): “You are wise beyond your years.”

‘(92 is still very wise, but his years have caught up to him.)

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