College basketball is on the verge of seismic changes for the 2024-25 season. Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington are joining the Big Ten. The “Four Corner” schools comprised of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are departing the Pac-12 for the Big 12. Oklahoma and Texas will finally join the SEC after announcing they would bolt for the conference during the summer of 2021.
The Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC are getting stronger and the Pac-12 is on the verge of collapsing after over a century of excellence. The good news: Two notable traditional rivalries are being renewed on the hardwood because of conference realignment and a handful of new marquee conference games are being created.
Texas and Texas A&M will play each other in conference play for the first time since 2012 — which marked Texas A&M’s final season in the Big 12 before leaving for the SEC. The other rivalry being renewed is a battle between in-state programs: BYU and Utah. Both schools were in the Mountain West in 2010 before Utah made the jump to the Pac-12. BYU joins the Big 12 officially this season after spending time as a member of the West Coast Conference in basketball.
Here are five conference games to look forward in 2024-25.
A Big 12 basketball matchup between Arizona and Kansas might be the most intriguing new conference game on the slate. Tommy Lloyd has helped bring back Arizona into the national spotlight and the move to arguably the strongest basketball conference in the country helps solidify the Wildcats’ footprint in the Midwest. Kansas won the national championship in 2021 and has been one of the most consistent programs during the last two decades under Bill Self. Moving to the Big 12 with Arizona allows the Wildcats to maintain its in-state rivalry with Arizona State but the program is also bound to create more new rivalries within the conference.
Texas vs. Texas A&M
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