Columbia News

The University of Missouri men's basketball team has announced its non-conference schedule and Southeastern Conference (SEC) opponents for the upcoming 2025-26 season. For the first time in school history, Mizzou will host ten teams that participated in last season's NCAA Tournament.

In total, the Tigers are set to face 19 of their 31 scheduled games against schools that made it to the national tournament in 2025. This is a significant increase from previous seasons, with only one other instance of welcoming more than seven NCAA Tournament teams at home, which occurred during the 1988-89 campaign when nine such teams visited Hearnes Center.

The Tigers' season opener is an away game at Howard on November 3, marking the earliest start in school history. The team's home opener follows on November 7 against Southeast Missouri, initiating a seven-game homestand including matchups with VMI, Minnesota, Prairie View A&M, South Dakota, South Carolina State, and Cleveland State.

Mizzou will play Notre Dame on December 2 as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge. Neutral-site rivalry games include facing Kansas in Kansas City on December 7 and Illinois in St. Louis on December 22. Between these matches are home games against Alabama State and Bethune-Cookman.

As SEC play begins in the New Year, Mizzou will compete in a conference that saw a record-setting participation of fourteen teams in last year's NCAA Tournament. The Tigers have home-and-away games with Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Oklahoma—all March Madness participants from last year—and will host defending national champion Florida and Final Four contender Auburn among others.

Six SEC opponents—Alabama, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Texas A&M—will be faced only on the road by Mizzou this season.

Under Head Coach Dennis Gates' leadership for his fourth year with the Whitten Family Men's Basketball program at Missouri, the team aims to build upon their success from last season where they defeated three top-five schools for the first time since 1988-89 and secured their second NCAA Tournament bid in three years while finishing sixth within an exceptional SEC campaign.