Northwestern Women's Basketball Announces Big Ten Opponents
A day after the men's basketball program announced its Big Ten opponents, Northwestern Women's Basketball has now done the same. The team shared its home and road conference matchups for next season on X earlier today.
𝐁𝟏𝐆 Opportunities 🔜
— Northwestern Women’s Basketball (@nuwbball) April 30, 2025
🎟️ https://t.co/vhaSRaASUJ pic.twitter.com/Iyi1GIhuGL
The 'Cats will play cross-state rival Illinois twice in 2025-26, once at home and once on the road. Unlike men's basketball, women's basketball plays 18 games in the conference regular season instead of 20. In the new-look Big Ten, that means it can only play one team twice.
Some intriguing games are coming to Welsh-Ryan arena next season. The 'Cats get both Iowa and USC at home, two teams that have found success nationally in recent seasons. They will both be tough matchups to win, but they're teams worth seeing live.
The rest of Northwestern's home schedule includes Rutgers, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State, UCLA and Purdue. The Bruins finished second to USC in the conference standings in 2024-25, so that will be another difficult game in Evanston.
On the road, the 'Cats will play Indiana, Nebraska, Michigan State, Maryland, Penn State, Washington, Minnesota and Oregon. After cancelling two games on the West Coast in 2025, Northwestern will make its first trip to that side of the country to take on the Ducks and the Huskies.
It's hard to know how teams will perform year to year given the transfer portal, but Northwestern does not play any of last year's top three finishers in the conference on the road. That's a solid draw for a team that finished 2-6 away from home last season.
The dates and times for all of these games have yet to be revealed. That is the next step in the process as Northwestern's schedule continues to take shape.
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Ryan Cole is a writer for Northwestern Wildcats On SI covering every team on campus. He’s currently a junior at NU where he’s studying journalism and previously wrote and edited for Inside NU. He also studies business with an eye towards eventually helping develop business models to revive local news. In his free time, Cole enjoys watching sports, playing sports, reading the news and singing.