The Big 12 released Arizona basketball’s 18-game conference schedule last week, and it was, again, so disappointing.
The Wildcats won't play a home-and-home series against Kansas, and do not play Top 25 rivals Texas Tech and Iowa State at McKale Center. Arizona's only game against Kansas will be at McKale, which is nice, but there is no return game at the famed Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas.
What's more, Arizona won't play long-time rivals Colorado and Utah on the road.
One thing that made Pac-10 sports work so well was home-and-home schedules. All of those Arizona-UCLA games at McKale and Pauley Pavilion each year were special. From 1988-2008, the Arizona-Stanford home-and-home basketball rivalry was of the can't-miss department. Same with dozens of years when Arizona and Oregon were games circled on the calendar.
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Arizona forward Ivan Kharchenkov (8) drives past Kansas center Paul Mbiya (34) and to the bucket in the first half of their Big 12 game at McKale Center, Feb. 28, 2026.
But this is 2026. Conferences are way too big and cumbersome — the Big Ten has 18 teams, the SEC has 16, the ACC has 18 — to worry about something as old-fashioned as yearly rivalries.
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