The long awaited Iowa men’s basketball schedule was released on Thursday and it includes a very challenging schedule, particularly when conference play arrives.

Start times for the entire schedule remain unknown, but we now know the conference schedule after the non-conference portion was released a few weeks ago. As has been the case for several years, Big Ten teams will play a pair of league games in early December. Iowa will host Northwestern on December 3^rd and travel to Michigan on December 7^th.

There’s also some unique aspects to the conference schedule, like a trip to Los Angeles in the middle of January to play USC on January 14^th and UCLA on the 17^th. In fact, one of the interesting aspects of this schedule is that Iowa will play back to backs either at home or on the road seven times during the conference slate of games.

The toughest stretch of games might be the five games starting with a contest at Ohio State. Then two home games, one against conference favorite Purdue and the second hosting Wisconsin. That’s followed by a trip to face Rutgers and Maryland on the road.

The end of the schedule is also pretty challenging with three of four games on the road. That includes trips to Illinois, Northwestern, and Nebraska with a home game against Tom Izzo and the Spartans.

Iowa will only play one true road game before January 1^st and they avoid playing on Super Bowl Sunday this year.

We will have more on the schedule in the coming weeks, including our prediction piece.

Exhibition: Oct 25^th – MN-Duluth

Nov. 4^th – Texas A&M Commerce

Nov. 7^th – Southern

Nov. 12^th – South Dakota

Nov. 15^th – Washington State (at Moline)

Nov. 19^th – Rider

Nov. 22^nd – Utah State (at Kansas City)

Nov. 26^th – USC Upstate

Dec. 3^rd – Northwestern

Dec. 7^th – @Michigan

Dec. 12^th – Iowa State

Dec. 15^th – New Orleans

Dec. 21^st – Utah (at Sioux Falls)

Dec. 30^th – New Hampshire

Jan. 3^rd – @ Wisconsin

Jan 7^th – Nebraska

Jan. 11^th – Indiana

Jan. 14^th – @USC

Jan. 17^th – @UCLA

Jan. 21^st– Minnesota

Jan. 24^th – Penn State

Jan. 27^th – @Ohio State

Feb. 4^th – Purdue

Feb. 8^th – Wisconsin

Feb. 12^th – @Rutgers

Feb. 16^th – @Maryland

Feb. 19^th – Oregon

Feb. 22^nd – Washington

Feb. 25^th – @Illinois

Feb. 28^th – @Northwestern

March 6^th – Michigan State

March 9^th – @Nebraska

March 12-16 – Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis