The Big Ten has laid out Maryland’s conference road map for the 2026-27 men’s basketball season, and the Terps will be thrown into the fire quickly.
Buzz Williams’ team opens league play in Columbus on December 6 against Ohio State, then comes right back for a home date with Michigan State three days later. After that, Maryland gets UCLA and USC at home to start the new year, before heading to Iowa and then Indiana.
There’s no doubt which game stands out on the calendar, though: Indiana’s visit to College Park on Saturday, February 13. That matchup lands on the 25th Anniversary of Maryland’s 2001-02 National Championship season, when the Terps beat Indiana 62-54 to win the program’s first title.
As the schedule shakes out, Maryland will also play Michigan State and Rutgers twice in conference play. The closing stretch looks especially tough, with a west coast trip and four of the final six games away from the Xfinity Center, including a meeting with the defending National Champs in Ann Arbor.
The Big Ten said the schedule was built with Fastbreak AI to “support competitive fairness, optimize travel, support broadcast objectives, and manage the increasing complexity of modern collegiate athletics scheduling.” Whether Maryland got a fair break is another question.
The Terps are coming off their worst season since joining the Big Ten, but the roster looks completely different now. Pharrel Payne is back healthy for a fifth year, six transfers have arrived, and five-star Baba Oladotun is in the mix as well. That gives Maryland real hope of getting back to postseason form in Prince George’s County.
The full non-conference slate is already out, too. Maryland has seven home games, two more in the DMV, and three at a neutral-site tournament.
There should be plenty of chances to build a résumé. Maryland will play at least nine games against teams that finished in the final AP Top 25 rankings, including eight against teams in the Top 15.
Maryland’s lone exhibition comes Sunday, October 18 against West Virginia.
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From the Notre Dame side, the conversation centered on what the Irish do well, how their fan base is viewing the game and what a path to a shock result might look like for Michigan State. It also nodded to Pat Fitzgerald's history in South Bend, adding a little extra texture to a game that already carries plenty of weight, even if the most important answers will not come until the teams actually take the field. [Read more 🡒]