The Big Ten released its conference schedule pairings for men’s basketball on Tuesday.
Nebraska will face Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Rutgers and Wisconsin both home and away. The Huskers will travel to Illinois, Iowa and Maryland for single-play road games and will host Michigan State, Penn State and Purdue for home-only games at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
Ten of Nebraska’s 20 Big Ten games will be against teams that made the NCAA Tournament last season — five at home and five on the road. Six others will be against NIT qualifiers including Wisconsin who made the final four of the tournament.
Nebraska will not host rival Iowa in front of fans for the first time since the 2015-16 season. The Hawkeyes also did not visit Lincoln in 2020-21 during the pandemic-altered season. The Cornhuskers swept Iowa this past season.
On the other hand, Nebraska will not have to visit Mackey Arena to face reigning Big Ten champion Purdue on its home court after three straight seasons featuring a trip to West Lafayette. Nebraska also won’t travel to East Lansing to face Michigan State for the first time since the 2019-20 season.
Nebraska went 16-16 overall including 9-11 in Big Ten Play last season, the best showing of the Fred Hoiberg era. Three starters departed in seniors Sam Griesel, Derrick Walker and Emmanuel Bandoumel but Hoiberg will return a core including the likes of Jamarques Lawrence, Juwan Gary and potentially Keisei Tominaga and has already added a pair of transfers in big man Rienk Mast from Bradley and wing Brice Williams from Charlotte.
Jacob Padilla has been writing for Hail Varsity since 2015. He covers football, volleyball men’s basketball and prep sports. He also co-hosts the Nebraska Preps Postgame and Nebraska Shootaround podcasts for the Hurrdat Media and Hail Varsity podcast networks. His love of basketball can best be described as an obsession and if you need to find him, he’s probably in a gym somewhere watching, coaching or playing hoops.
