Gonzaga is UCLA's only out of state non-conference opponent in 2025

UCLA is avoiding travel as much as possible after a grueling Big Ten slate last year

UCLA Bruins head coach Mick Cronin. | Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

Mark Few and the Gonzaga Bulldogs have long adapted a scheduling mantra of being willing to play anyone, anywhere, at any time — a mantra that is unfortunately becoming more and more rare in the college basketball space.

The UCLA Bruins released their non-conference schedule on Monday, and the team's trip to Seattle to face Gonzaga at the Climate Pledge Arena is their only non-conference game outside of California, and one of just three games away from Pauley Pavilion for Mick Cronin's team.

UCLA will play eight home games — against Eastern Washington, Pepperdine, West Georgia, Sacramento State, Presbyterian, Arizona State, UC Riverside, and Cal Poly — and three neutral site games, one against Arizona at the Intuit Dome, another against Cal at the Chase Center, and the game against the Zags on Dec. 13 in Seattle.

One of those 'neutral' sites — the Intuit Dome — is less than 15 miles from UCLA's campus, and while the Chase Center in San Francisco is far closer to Cal's campus in Berkeley, it's not a difficult jaunt for the Bruins either.

This scheduling strategy by UCLA is intentional, with the team even bowing out of the CBS Sports Classic for the first time since the event started in 2014. Each year, this field has included UCLA, Ohio State, Kentucky, and North Carolina, but the Bruins did not want to make the trip to Atlanta this year and were replaced by St. John's instead.

Dec 28, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; UCLA Bruins forward Tyler Bilodeau (34) and Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Graham Ike (13) during a college basketball game at Intuit Dome. | Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images

UCLA's move to the Big Ten is the primary culprit for this West Coast-heavy non-conference slate, with Cronin frequently making complaints about the amount of travel his program did last year in conference play.

"We've seen the Statue of Liberty twice in the last three weeks," Cronin famously quipped, referencing a trip to New York to face North Carolina at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 21 — part of the aforementioned CBS Sports Classic — followed by a conference road game against Rutgers on Jan. 13, which ended up being UCLA's fourth loss in a row.

The Big Ten has a 20-game conference slate, limiting each team to just 11 non-conference games. A rule change will allow teams to play 32 total games in 2026-27, which should encourage more marquee non-conference matchups, but ultimately, the risk does not outweigh the reward for most programs.

The NET system rewards teams who rack up big margins of victory, even against inferior opponents, and conferences like the Big Ten and Big 12 have realized that if the majority of their teams play easy non-conference schedules, they will rise in the NET rankings and create more Quad 1 and Quad 2 opportunities for each other. And with bloated conference schedules, the easiest path forward is to set yourself up to go 10-1 or 9-2 in non-conference play, that way even a 12-8 record in the Big Ten results in a 21-10 record and a favorable seed in March.

For Gonzaga, this makes scheduling a challenging non-conference schedule more and more difficult, although Mark Few made it work this year with games against Kentucky, Creighton, Oklahoma, Oregon, Alabama, and Maryland in addition to the UCLA matchup.

Plus, the move from the WCC to the Pac-12 starting in 2026-27 will give the Zags more challenging games during conference play, putting less pressure on the non-conference schedule to carry the team's resume in the eyes of the selection committee.

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