We have another six months to go to see how Jan Jensen builds on her first season as Iowa's head coach, but we have a little bit more information about the schedule for Iowa WBB for the 2025-26 season. On Wednesday, we found out which fellow Big Ten opponents Iowa would be playing at home, away from Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and both home and away.
As a reminder, the Big Ten currently plays an 18-game conference schedule in women's basketball. (This is different than the men's league schedule, which is 20 games.) With 18 teams in the Big Ten now, that breaks down to playing 16 opponents once (8 at home, 8 away from home) and one opponent twice (home and away).
In 2024-25, Iowa's double-play opponent was also Nebraska. The other home and away games were an inversion of the '25-26 schedule. The Hawkeyes had home games against Indiana, Maryland, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, and Wisconsin. Iowa also had road games at Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Penn State, Ohio State, Oregon, and Washington.
11 Big Ten teams made the NCAA Tournament in 2025, with Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oregon, UCLA, and USC joining Iowa in the Big Dance. In addition, Washington lost out in the First Four. UCLA survived the longest of any Big Ten squad, advancing to the Final Four before losing to eventual national champion UConn.
While it's still challenging to project which teams will be good next year in women's basketball, there's a little bit more roster continuity in WBB than in MBB, which does make it somewhat easier to make educated guesses about which teams might be tough next winter.
Seven Big Ten teams (including Iowa) made ESPN's most recent Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings, headlined by UCLA at #3. The other Big Ten teams in the rankings were #12 Maryland, #15 Michigan, #19 USC, #22 Iowa, #23 Michigan State, and #24 Washington. Home games against Michigan, Michigan State, and Washington should be beneficial, while road trips to Maryland and UCLA look very daunting.
Still, there are many months to go until those games play out -- and plenty of time to see how next year's Iowa team develops. Stay tuned to Hawkeye Beacon for more information about Iowa's 2025-26 schedule, including more non-conference opponents, as well dates, tip-off times, and TV information for these Big Ten games, all of which will be released in the coming weeks and months.
