Takeaways From Indiana's 2024-25 Big Ten Basketball Schedule
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Big Ten on Wednesday announced home and road opponents for the 2024-25 basketball season.
While many matchups will feature familiar conference foes, the Big Ten expands next season to 18 teams with the addition of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. The Big Ten kept its 20-game conference slate, which means teams will only play three conference opponents twice. The rest of the schedule features seven home-only opponents and seven road-only opponents.
Here’s Indiana’s draw:
Home and away: Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue
Home only: Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Rutgers, UCLA, USC
Away only: Iowa, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin
We’re still months away from the season, and many rosters remain unsettled due to over 1,000 players entering the transfer portal. Indiana coach Mike Woodson did well to replace CJ Gunn (DePaul), Kaleb Banks (Tulane) and Payton Sparks (Ball State) with Myles Rice (Washington State), Kanaan Carlyle (Stanford), Oumar Ballo (Arizona), Luke Goode (Illinois) and five-star freshman Bryson Tucker.
Dates, times and television designations will be announced later, but here are three takeaways from Indiana’s draw.
Rivalry preserved despite expansion
Many wondered how Big Ten expansion would affect traditional rivalries that make college basketball unique. UCLA versus Rutgers certainly doesn’t sound like a Big Ten matchup fans are accustomed to seeing, but the conference made sure some of its most beloved rivalries remain intact. From an Indiana perspective, that meant keeping Purdue on the schedule. Though the Hoosiers will play 14 Big Ten opponents just once, they’ll host their in-state rivals at Assembly Hall and travel to Mackey Arena to face the Boilermakers.
Purdue handled Indiana easily in both matchups last season on its way to a national championship appearance. But Woodson went 3-1 against the Boilermakers in his first two years and reloaded his roster with talent at every position heading into his fourth year. Coach Matt Painter has maintained success despite losing talent in the past, but next year is perhaps his biggest challenge yet after losing two-time National Player of the Year Zach Edey.
A chance to break the streak
Indiana used to dominate Wisconsin during the Bob Knight era, going 45-4 from 1972-98, but the trend has completely flipped. Indiana’s last win at the Kohl Center came in 1998, and the Hoosiers are 0-20 at Wisconsin since 2000. Wisconsin defeated Indiana 91-79 in Madison last season, and Woodson is 2-3 in all matchups against the Badgers since becoming Indiana’s coach.
The transfer portal has not been kind to Wisconsin this offseason, which could make winning next year’s matchup more promising from Indiana’s perspective. Wisconsin’s leading scorer AJ Storr transferred to Kansas, starting point guard Chucky Hepburn transferred to Louisville, and starting power forward Tyler Wahl graduated. So far, coach Greg Gard added guard Camren Hunter (Central Arkansas) and forward Xavier Amos (Northern Illinois) through the transfer portal to a returning core of Steven Crowl, Max Klesmit and John Blackwell.
First Assembly Hall experience for California schools
Indiana will make the cross-country trip to Oregon and Washington, but it won’t travel to USC or UCLA in 2024-25. Those California programs will play at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall for the first time.
Although Indiana and UCLA are two iconic college basketball programs, combining for 16 national titles from 1940-95, they haven’t matched up since the 2007 NCAA Tournament. And UCLA has not come to Bloomington since the 1956-57 season, before Assembly Hall was built. The first Assembly Hall matchup should give the Hoosiers an advantage in breaking the 6-6 all-time series tie.
UCLA had a down year in 2023-24, going 16-17, but coach Mick Cronin went to two Sweet 16s and one Final Four with UCLA in the three years prior. He’s done well in the transfer portal this offseason and looks to have a top-25 squad in 2024-25.
Indiana’s history against USC is even less notable, with just four matchups between 1937-74. The series is tied 2-2, and three of the four games were played in Los Angeles. USC has experienced as much roster turnover as any team in college basketball this offseason after coach Andy Enfield left for SMU. USC hired Arkansas coach Eric Musselman, who went just 16-17 last year but took the Razorbacks to two Elite Eights and one Sweet 16 in the previous three seasons.
With Cronin and Musselman, UCLA and USC have two coaches in the upper tier of the Big Ten.
Overall thoughts
Roster and coaching changes throughout the conference make it tricky to say just how easy or difficult Indiana’s Big Ten schedule will be in 2024-25. We also don’t know the dates of games, so it’s unknown whether Indiana will have a particularly challenging stretch at a certain point of the season.
In a big-picture sense, two matchups against Purdue and Ohio State create four tough games, and some teams will only have to play them twice. Purdue is the current Big Ten favorite, and Ohio State is close behind Indiana in the top-45 rankings by Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.
Playing Michigan State at the Breslin Center is always difficult. Indiana knows that from its pair of 15-point losses there in the last two matchups. And we already rehashed the Hoosiers’ struggles at Wisconsin. But Indiana also avoided road trips to Illinois, Maryland and Rutgers, which are traditionally viewed as some of the more daunting road environments in the conference. The Hoosiers also only play two of the four new Big Ten teams on the road.
Here’s a look at where Big Ten teams landed in Rothstein’s top-45 rankings, with corresponding matchup locations for Indiana.
8 Purdue (home, away)
14 Indiana
19 Ohio State (home, away)
21 UCLA (home)
23 Michigan State (away)
24 Oregon (away)
25 Rutgers (home)
29 Michigan (home)
34 Wisconsin (away)
36 Maryland (home)
40 Illinois (home)
Unranked
Iowa (away)
Minnesota (home)
Nebraska (away)
Northwestern (away)
Penn State (home, away)
USC (home)
Washington (away)
JACK ANKONY