UConn males’s basketball will open the 2026-27 season as heavy favorites towards Gardner-Webb, with the sport serving as an on-ramp to one of many sport’s most troublesome nonconference schedules in current historical past.
The competitors stage instantly ramps up that very same week, because the Huskies journey to Boston for a nationwide championship rematch towards Michigan, one among 4 nonconference opponents that completed in KenPom’s prime 5 final season. On Friday, distinguished school basketball analyst Andy Katz launched his checklist of the ten most troublesome nonconference schedules in school basketball this upcoming season, with UConn claiming the highest spot because of this compilation of daunting opponents.
After taking over the Wolverines, coach Dan Hurley must endure via one other of his “hated” purchase video games towards Wagner, his former workforce, forward of a difficult three-game stretch towards Ohio State, Arizona and Duke. The Wildcats are one among three returning marquee opponents from final 12 months’s slate, because the Huskies face off towards Illinois and Kansas in December, and the nonconference schedule wraps up towards Virginia Dec. 20 earlier than Massive East play begins Dec. 23.
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Hurley has explicitly aimed to construct one of many nation’s prime nonconference schedules lately, trying to present his Huskies roster with early challenges whereas abiding by a number of particular ideas. The Huskies have sworn off multi-team occasions since Hurley’s meltdown on the Maui Invitational two years in the past, as a substitute preferring one-off matchups with high-profile opponents, usually at neutral-site venues.
“We like the way in which it is labored for us the final couple of years,” former normal supervisor Tom Moore informed CTInsider earlier this 12 months about UConn’s scheduling strategy. “It is onerous, as a result of we wish to play the elite manufacturers. And it is superb how shortly you run out of the elite-level manufacturers, the place you do not really feel such as you’re taking place (in competitors).”
The Huskies have employed a number of distinctive methods to ensure these marquee opponents slot into their schedule. On Thanksgiving Eve, UConn and Duke will face off in Las Vegas as a part of a multiyear settlement between the Blue Devils and Amazon Prime Video, with UConn anticipated to obtain $500,000 in NIL cash for taking part.
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This text initially revealed at Andy Katz: UConn males’s basketball has nation’s hardest nonconference schedule.