Report: Cal, UCLA Close to a Deal to Meet Next Season in Basketball

Cal and UCLA are no longer in the same basketball conference, so they are not scheduled to play each other every season. However, Jon Rothstein reported via Twitter on Friday that Cal and UCLA are finalizing a deal to play each other next season on the Golden State Warriors' home court, the Chase Center in San Francisco.

The Bruins were an NCAA tournament team this past season and are expected to be a top-25 team in 2025-26.

NEWS: UCLA and Cal are finalizing an agreement to play a neutral site game next season at the Chase Center in San Francisco, according to multiple sources.https://t.co/1NfV4TG1Ds
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) April 25, 2025

One of the major disappointments among Cal basketball fans that resulted from the elimination of the Pac-12 as we know it was that the two prominent University of California schools would not play each other. Cal's games against the Bruins were usually the Bears' top drawing games of the season.

UCLA is now a member of the Big Ten while Cal is in the ACC, but the two schools are trying to find ways to play each other in nonconference games.

The last time the teams met was in the 2023-24 season. Cal beat the Bruins in Los Angeles in their first meeting that season, but UCLA beat Cal by one point later that season in Berkeley, even though the Golden Bears had the lead with 36 seconds remaining.

Generally, though, UCLA has dominated this rivalry, having won 12 of the past 13 meetings with Cal.

Cal is coming off a 14-19 season in Mark Madsen's second year as a head coach, and the Bears will have a very different roster in 2025-26 with a number of Cal players entering the transfer portal and a lot of transfers coming to Cal in the past few weeks.

In its first season in the Big Ten, UCLA went 23-11 overall and 13-7 in conference play. The Bruins got to the second round of the NCAA tournament before losing to No. 1 seed Tennessee by nine points.

UCLA also has undergone a lot of roster changes as a result of transfers in and out of the program. The Bruins' most significant addition is Donovan Dent, who was the Mountain West Player of the Year this past season while at New Mexico,

ESPN ranked UCLA No. 14 in its early preseason rankings for the 2025-26 season.