The Wildcats’ home-and-away pairings are decidedly Pac-12
The Big 12 announced its women’s basketball conference pairings for the 2025-26 season. Arizona’s home-and-away slate has a decidedly Pac-12 flavor with two games against Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah.
The 18-game league slate includes three home-and-away series and 12 one-off games against the remaining members of the league. The pairings “were selected to best balance the schedule in terms of travel and competitiveness,” according to the Big 12 press release. The conference will announce dates, times, and television information at a later date.
At the press conference held during the offseason meetings in Orlando, Fla. last month, TCU head coach Mark Campbell and Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider spoke about the league’s priorities when matching up the 16 teams. Both held the opinion that putting the conference in the best position to get teams in the tournament was more important than travel.
“It’s a very difficult job,” Schneider said on May 28. “We spent a lot of time talking about both conference and nonconference scheduling today in our meetings. I think for a team like the one Mark has or the one that Coach (Bill) Fennelly has returning to Iowa State, those are teams that are going to be considered to be some of the top programs in the country. So, those guys having to have a schedule that’s necessary to help them have the best seed possible tournament is something that’s really important. And I don’t think our our league is one that prioritizes the travel as much as they do how we set up our teams to have the strongest seed as possible.”
The home-and-away series for the Wildcats will consist entirely of the Four Corners schools that joined the league in 2024-25. Last season, the Wildcats played two games against both ASU and Utah but just one against CU.
Arizona’s home-only matchups will mostly be a reverse of last season. The primary difference is that the Wildcats will not have a home-and-away series against BYU this year. Instead, the Cougars of Provo will join UCF, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State as visitors in McKale Center.
The slate of visiting teams will bring one former Wildcat back to Tucson. Little-used reserve Jorynn Ross transferred to Houston in the offseason. That group of Cougars struggled last season, although they continued to fight until the end and may be on the rise.
UH hired former Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell in the offseason. Mitchell was hugely successful at UK. He is returning to the game after stepping away for a few years following a debilitating head injury.
Kansas State will probably be the toughest visitor during league play. It added a strong portal class that should keep it near the top of the league.
The Wildcats from Manhattan brought in several players from other Power 4 teams: Jenessa Cotton of Duke, Tess Heal of Stanford, Ramiya White of Virginia Tech, and Izela Arenas of Louisville. Arenas is the daughter of former Arizona Wildcat Gilbert Arenas, but the Wildcats of Tucson weren’t in the running this time. KSU’s biggest loss was seventh-year senior Ayoka Lee.
UA will go on the road to play Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech, and West Virginia. The schedule means that former Wildcat Jada Williams will not play in McKale Center during the 2025-26 season. Williams transferred to ISU after last season.
TCU is expected to be the runaway favorite in the league once again. It was certainly one of the biggest winners during the portal season.
The Horned Frogs lost significant talent after their conference title last year, but Campbell once again went into the portal and reloaded with some of the top talent available.
Last year, that talent was led by former Louisville and LSU guard Hailey Van Lith. This year, it is led by former Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles. It also includes former Tennessee and California forward Marta Suarez. Texas A&M sent combo guard Taliyah Parker to Fort Worth. Kentucky sent promising but little-used 6-foot-7 freshman Clara Silva. She could form twin towers with former Oregon and ASU center Kennedy Basham.
Baylor should be right there battling for one of the top spots again. The Bears didn’t add as many players, but Nicki Collen did get one of the top players available in former Arkansas and Auburn shooting guard Taliah Scott. Their biggest question will be who steps up in the frontcourt after the departure of Aaronette Vonleh.
Arizona went 19-14 overall last year, getting to 18 or more wins for the seventh straight season. The Wildcats’ first season in the Big 12 ended with a 10-8 record and a spot in the top half of the league. After receiving a first-round bye, they lost to Colorado in the quarterfinals of the league tournament. That effectively ended their hopes of getting into a fourth straight NCAA Tournament.
It wasn’t the end of their postseason hopes, though. They made the postseason for the sixth straight season but bowed out in the first round of the WBIT with two players choosing to sit on the sidelines.
The team will go into its second Big 12 season with a lot of unknowns under new head coach Becky Burke. The only returning player is forward Montaya Dew, who suffered a second knee injury in the final regular season home game and sat out for the rest of the year. She has played just one season after tearing her ACL just before her freshman season. She is also the only member of the Wildcats to have played in more than two conference games in a Power 4 league.
UA will join ASU, BYU, and Houston as the four teams with new head coaches for the 2025-26 season.