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Michigan State basketball’s road schedule next winter will take a tour of some of the toughest places to play in the Big Ten.
The Spartans will play their only meetings of the 2025-26 season at Purdue, Wisconsin and Nebraska, the conference revealed Tuesday. They also will return to the Pacific Northwest to face Oregon and Washington for the first time on the road in conference action after the two newcomers visited East Lansing this winter.
MSU also plays Michigan, Indiana and Rutgers twice, giving Tom Izzo three more daunting road games in his 31st season.
The toughest task will be winning at Purdue after the Spartans beat Matt Painter’s team in their lone meeting this season at Breslin Center. MSU has not beaten the Boilermakers at Mackey since Feb. 20, 2014, a seven-game losing streak.
The Spartans also have lost three of the last four road meetings against Rutgers, though they split with the Scarlet Knights the past two years at Madison Square Garden. Their Jan. 25 win in New York last season ended a three-game road losing streak to the Scarlet Knights, with two of those in 2021 and 2022 at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway, New Jersey. MSU’s last win at the campus venue (aka Rutgers Athletic Center, aka The RAC) came Nov. 30, 2018.
Tom Izzo’s team will avoid making a Los Angeles trip next season. The Spartans lost consecutive road games at USC and UCLA in February, two of their three conference defeats en route to winning the Big Ten regular-season championship with a 17-3 record. MSU will host the Trojans and Bruins next season.
The Spartans’ only other loss came at home to the Hoosiers in their lone meeting of the winter. MSU is 16-48 all-time and 2-4 since 2017 at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.
Here is a look at the Spartans’ opponents for 2025-26. Full schedules with dates will be released later this summer or early fall.
Home only: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Northwestern, Ohio State, UCLA and USC.
Road only: Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Penn State, Purdue, Washington and Wisconsin.
Home and road: Indiana, Michigan and Rutgers.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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