Though football has dominated most of the sports discussions in Iowa City, it will soon be time for Iowa fans to turn their attention to the hardwood as well. 

Iowa's men's and women's basketball teams won't begin their 2026-27 campaigns until November, but the first sign the season is fast approaching came on Wednesday afternoon when the Big Ten released the conference schedules for both men's and women's basketball. 

The long-awaited release means we now finally know the full schedules for both Hawkeye basketball clubs. If you missed the announcement on social media, we've got you covered with the full slates here along with our reactions to some of the most compelling matchups in conference action. 

11/2: vs. Towson

11/5: vs. Eastern Illinois 

11/8: vs. UConn (in Hartford or Storrs) 

11/12: vs. Northern Iowa 

11/15: vs. Vanderbilt (in Sioux City)

11/19: vs. Montana State 

11/23: Baha Mar Hoops (in Bahamas)

11/25: Baha Mar Hoops (in Bahamas) 

12/1: @ Drake 

12/5: vs. Nebraska

12/9: vs. Iowa State 

12/13: vs. Southern 

12/20: vs. Northern Illinois 

12/29: @ Illinois 

1/1: @ Michigan State 

1/5: vs. Rutgers 

1/9: @ Minnesota 

1/14: vs. Northwestern 

1/17: vs. Indiana 

1/24: @ Oregon 

1/27: @ Washington 

1/31: vs. Wisconsin 

2/4: @ Nebraska 

2/7: @ Michigan 

2/11: vs. USC 

2/14: vs. UCLA 

2/18: @ Penn State 

2/21: vs. Purdue 

2/25: vs. Maryland 

2/28: @ Ohio State 

Jan Jensen and Co. have built one heck of a non-conference schedule, but our focus is on the newly-unveiled conference slate. Simply put, the Big Ten is the best women's basketball conference in the country. Every team can win on a given night, and there's trult no bottom of the conference. We're already going to find out if the Hawkeyes will be as good as advertised in the non-conference, but take a look at two sections of the schedule. 

Iowa will ring in the new year with three of four games on the road, and all three will be tough games. Illinois, Michigan State, and Minnesota are rising programs in this conference, especially the Gophers, who reached the Sweet 16 last year. Illinois is going to be a threat as long as Shauna Green is the head coach, too. 

But then there's another animal - the mid-February slate. The Hawkeyes always play their best basketball near the end of the year, and you couldn't ask for a better back-to-back in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. USC is going to vault back to national contention with a healthy JuJu Watkins, and we know UCLA (on Super Bowl Sunday, too!) will stay near the top after winning the national title last year. 

Oh, and hosting Maryland and traveling to Ohio State to end the regular season should be very fun as well. Grab your popcorn, folks. 

11/3: vs. Lipscomb 

11/6: vs. Eastern Illinois

11/10: vs. Virginia Tech (in Sioux City) 

11/15: vs. Creighton (in Des Moines) 

11/20: @ Xavier 

11/24: vs. UMBC

11/28: vs. Prairie View A&M 

12/1: @ Purdue 

12/7: vs. Indiana 

12/10: vs. Iowa State

12/13: vs. Western Illinois 

12/17: vs. Bethune Cookman 

12/21: vs. Alabama (in Des Moines) 

12/29: vs. South Dakota 

1/2: vs. Ohio State 

1/6: vs. Wisconsin 

1/9: vs. Maryland 

1/12: @ Rutgers 

1/16: @ Nebraska 

1/23: @ Penn State

1/26: @ Ohio State 

1/30: vs. Nebraska 

2/3: @ USC 

2/6: @ UCLA 

2/10: vs. Oregon 

2/13: @ Northwestern 

2/16: vs. Michigan State 

2/20: @ Michigan 

2/24: @ Wisconsin 

2/27: vs. Minnesota 

3/2: vs. Washington 

3/6: @ Illinois 

There's a lot of things that stand out about this schedule, but first you have to keep in mind that they play 20 conference games on the men's side. We've already talked about the aggressive scheduling Ben McCollum did in the non-conference slate, so the focus in our reaction is going to be on the conference slate. 

The natural instinct here is to look at the December conference games, and that's exactly what I did. It feels like the Hawkeyes have to play some of the league's best teams in that early window, and guess what, that's exactly what happened here. Opening the Big Ten slate against Purdue will be a major challenge for Iowa, and that three-game stretch of Purdue, Indiana, and Iowa State could tell us how good this Hawkeye team can be in 2027. 

Opening the new year with three consecutive home games is nice, but the other game to talk about here has to be the regular season finale at Illinois. Playing Michigan and Michigan State back-to-back in early February won't be easy, but some of you have had the Elite Eight rematch against Illinois in the back of your minds for some time. 

Every matchup between the Hawkeyes and Fighting Illini is intense (just remember the 2020 and 2022 regular season finales in Champaign), and this one at the State Farm Center could have major Big Ten and NCAA tournament implications. 

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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at [email protected]