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USA Today
3 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Non-conference schedule released for Nebraska's 2025-26 men's basketball season
Non-conference schedule released for Nebraska's 2025-26 men's basketball season On Friday afternoon, the Nebraska men's basketball team released the non-conference schedule for the 2025-26 season. The Huskers start the season with exhibitions against BYU and Midland at the end of October. Other highlights include a game against Oklahoma to be played in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and participation in the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City. Head coach Fred Hoiberg is excited for what the non-conference schedule holds for Nebraska this season. 'We have a number of tests in our non-conference schedule, beginning with the exhibition game with a BYU team that went to the Sweet 16 last season. That matchup will give us a good gauge heading into the season. We open with three straight home games before facing Oklahoma and two high-caliber games in the Hall of Fame Classic the following week. The December portion of the schedule features Creighton which will be one of the favorites in the Big East and two Big Ten games before we return to conference play in January.' The Huskers also have home matchups in the Big Ten against Purdue, Michigan State, Maryland, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Illinois. Nebraska is coming off a 2024-25 season that saw the Huskers finish with a 21-14 record and a championship in the College Basketball Crown. Find the entire non-conference schedule below. 2025-26 Nebraska Non-Conference Schedule Date Opponent Sat., Oct. 18 BYU (Exhibition) Mon., Oct. 27 Midland (Exhibition) Mon., Nov. 3 West Georgia Sat., Nov. 8 Florida International Tues., Nov. 11 Maryland-Eastern Shore Sat., Nov. 15 vs. Oklahoma (at Sioux Falls) Thurs., Nov. 20 at Hall of Fame Classic (Kansas State, Miss. St., New Mexico) Fri., Nov. 21 at Hall of Fame Classic (Kansas State, Miss. St., New Mexico) Tues, Nov. 25 Winthrop Sat., Nov. 29 South Carolina Upstate Sun, Dec. 7 Creighton Sun, Dec. 21 North Dakota Tues., Dec. 30 New Hampshire Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinions.
USA Today
5 hours ago
- Politics
- USA Today
College sports leaders have no good reasons to expand CFP, March Madness
College sports leaders have no good reasons to expand CFP, March Madness SEC and Big Ten leaders, plus many others, are waging war against problems that don't really exist; struggling for the sake of struggle. Show Caption Hide Caption How coaches salaries and the NIL bill affects college football Dan Wolken breaks down the annual college football coaches compensation package to discuss salaries and how the NIL bill affects them. Sports Pulse The more we've heard this week from the leaders of college athletics about their urgent need to expand the College Football Playoff and the NCAA men's basketball tournament, the less clear it becomes why they're expanding in the first place. It would be one thing if there was an obvious business case why it's necessary for March Madness to go from 68 to 72 or 74 teams, as NCAA president Charlie Baker suggested could be imminent Thursday in comments at the Big 12's spring meetings. The same goes for the CFP, whose format was a major talking point every day at the SEC's meetings, with a looming decision about whether to expand from 12 to 16. But after months of debate on both fronts, what's become clear is that expansion is going to happen for no reason other than a vapid sense of inertia sprung from the bruised egos of sports executives – who subconsciously understand their own fundamental weakness and ineffectiveness are to blame for the spiral of chaos that college sports can't seem to escape. At least when they push a button to expand a postseason, it feels like they're doing something. That's an explanation. It's not a reason. When the NFL expanded its playoffs from 12 to 14 in 2020, changing its format for the first time in three decades, the obvious factor was an influx of money: Hundreds of millions of dollars, in fact, half of which gets split with players. When the NBA shook up its postseason and created the play-in tournament, the primary motivation was to keep more teams competitive late in the season and discourage tanking. Those are sensible reasons everyone can understand. But neither Baker nor one of the prominent conference commissioners like the SEC's Greg Sankey or the Big Ten's Tony Petitti have been able to articulate a clear and concise mission statement for what expansion of either tournament is supposed to accomplish. They just want to do it. Here's how thin the rationale is regarding March Madness: Speaking with reporters in Orlando, Baker cited the committee snubbing Missouri Valley Conference regular-season champion Indiana State in 2024 despite a 32-7 record, suggesting an expansion would get the NCAA tournament closer to including the "best" 68 teams. Of course, the NCAA tournament has always worked this way. Excellent mid-major teams that lose in their conference tournament often don't get in. And as the track record of the tournament clearly shows, the vast majority of bids in an expanded field would go to power conference teams with questionable records. The push to expand March Madness precedes Baker's tenure, which began in March 2023. In fact, you can trace the momentum back to March of 2022 when Texas A&M was left out despite a late-season surge to the championship game of the SEC tournament, converting Sankey into a public proponent of expansion. But the idea that tournament spots are being filled by automatic qualifiers from mid-major conferences with less chance to do damage in the tournament than Texas A&M's 2022 team, for instance, isn't new. It's part of the deal, and there's no real demand to move the cut line other than from those who are inconvenienced by it. In fact, one of the big obstacles to March Madness expansion – and the reason it didn't happen years ago – is that there's not a huge pot of television money out there for a few more games between mediocre basketball teams on Tuesday and Wednesday of tournament week. Not only is expansion unlikely to boost profits in a significant way, it's an open question whether the NCAA can expand the tournament without diluting the shares of its revenue distribution model, which are worth about $2 million per team per round. A similar dynamic is at play in the CFP debate. 12-team CFP worked; trashing it makes no sense There were clear incentives for the conference commissioners when they first floated expanding the football tournament from four to 12 teams back in 2021. Not only had TV ratings leveled off, perhaps due to many of the same programs populating the field year after year, but going to 12 would both guarantee access for all the power conference champions and set the table for a $1.3 billion per year contract with ABC/ESPN beginning in 2026 – nearly triple the original 12-year deal that established the CFP. But that's where things get murky. Even before the first 12-team playoff last year, conference commissioners were *already* batting around a 14-team model for 2026. That has now morphed into a likely 16-team bracket. The financial terms of the TV deal, however, will not change in a significant way, whether they land at 12, 14 or 16. So why do it? Not because it's a great business proposition – in fact, there's a legitimate concern about playoff oversaturation and potential second-order effects – but because the more you expand access, the more access everyone wants. That's what we have seen over the last week, especially from the SEC meetings as Sankey and others in the league launched a breathtaking, shameless propaganda effort attempting to rewrite recent history. Getting a mere three teams into last year's 12-team playoff while the Big Ten won its second straight title seems to have done a psychological number on those folks. Rather than admit the truth – the SEC didn't have an amazing year in 2024 and the playing field nationally has been leveled to some extent by NIL and the transfer portal – they are arguing to shape the next CFP format based on a level of conference strength that certainly existed in the past but hasn't in the NIL/transfer portal era. One prominent athletics director, Florida's Scott Stricklin, questioned whether the football bracket should be chosen by committee. Another unnamed administrator went so far as to muse that the SEC and Big Ten should think about just holding their own playoff, according to Yahoo! Sports. If you take a step back and look at what's happening from a 30,000-foot view, it smacks of famed political scientist Francis Fukuyama's 'The End of History,' where he writes about how the triumph of Western liberalism and consumerism has unwittingly created this kind of regressive condition that shows up in so many facets of life and culture. 'If men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation,' he wrote, 'then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle.' That kind of feels like what's going on here. Aside from a small adjustment in how it was seeded, nothing about the 12-team playoff seemed problematic. If anything, it was widely praised for delivering what the original expansion proponents wanted: Geographic diversity, representation for the four power conferences and the Group of Five, first-round playoff games in college venues and a lot of interesting games from the quarterfinals on. In other words, it worked. And there is no obvious reason – financial or otherwise – to have chucked it in the trash already while the four power conferences launch a war amongst themselves about how much access gets allocated to each conference, and by whom. The angst is especially confusing from the SEC, which just got a record 14 bids to the men's basketball tournament (including national champion Florida), has eight of the 16 national seeds for the baseball tournament and five of the eight teams in the Women's College World Series. They're doing just fine, and there is a long track record of being justly rewarded when their teams perform at the highest level. There's little doubt that will happen again in football regardless of which playoff system gets implemented. It just didn't happen last year because the SEC, for once, did not deserve it. But the Big Ten and the SEC are, as Fukuyama wrote, struggling for the sake of struggle. The more power they have amassed by reshaping the landscape through realignment, the more they claim the system is broken. Some believe their end game is a separation from the NCAA, creating a world where they don't have to share a business partnership with conferences and schools they believe aren't bringing as much value to the table. The reality, though, is that any such move would draw a level of scrutiny – legal and political – they are not currently prepared to handle, not to mention the arduous work of building out the infrastructure for all kinds of unglamorous stuff the NCAA already provides. So instead, they wage war against problems that don't really exist, reach for solutions that create actual problems and then fail to solve the problems right in front of their face. The push to expand the NCAA tournament and the CFP are merely symptoms of an affluenza swallowing the highest levels of college sports. Knowing they've failed miserably to execute on the important issues they truly need to solve to ensure the long-term health of their business, the likes of Sankey and Petitti and many others have elevated tedium to a crisis. So a crisis is what they shall have.
The Herald Scotland
9 hours ago
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Lane Kiffin's College Football Playoff plan sounds tempting
Kiffin's playoff plan looks like this: Sixteen teams. Four rounds. No automatic bids. Every team must earn at-large selection. The selection process would involve analytics, combined with a human element. This wasn't my first time hearing Kiffin's idea. He ran this plan past me when we spoke in March. At the time, I didn't love Kiffin's idea. I detect no irreparable flaw with the current 12-team playoff. I didn't hate his idea, though. And I'm starting to like it more. In the months since Kiffin first floated his idea, the possibility a 16-team playoff beginning as soon as 2026 has gained steam across conferences. While the future format continues to be debated, it's clear that expansion is likely coming, in some shape and form. I'm beginning to relinquish my grip on the 12-team playoff and accept the reality of a 16-team future. As I listened to SEC muckety-mucks debate the merits of the leading 16-team ideas at the conference's spring meetings here this week, it struck me that maybe Kiffin's proposal remains the best 16-team proposal. CFP DEBATE: How SECs Greg Sankey has chance to be hero instead of villain FRIENDLY FOES?: LSU's Brian Kelly issues schedule challenge to Big Ten Kiffin's idea certainly trumps the 4+4+2+2+1 model the Big Ten favors. That rigged math equation would preassign four auto-bids to the Big Ten, plus four more to the SEC, two to the Big 12, two to the ACC, one to the top remaining conference champion, and then leave three at-large bids. This crock of a plan would reward preseason conference prestige as much as in-season results. No thanks. Someone, please shove this Big Ten brainchild into the woodchipper, and scatter the ashes on the surface of the sun. Kiffin's plan more closely resembles the 5+11 model that the Big 12 publicly supports. The ACC also reportedly favors a 5+11 system, and some SEC coaches took a shine to the idea this week, even while SEC athletic directors collectively seem more interested in the auto-bid plan favored by the Big Ten. In the 5+11 model, the top five conference champions would secure bids, leaving 11 at-large bids. That model would produce brackets that likely would resemble Kiffin's plan, but the Ole Miss coach prefers no auto-bids. So, let's play out his idea with a look in the rearview mirror. Here's how the bracket would have looked in Kiffin's model last season, using the final CFP rankings as the guide for determining the 16 qualifiers. No. 16 Clemson at No. 1 Oregon Critics of a 16-team playoff say there aren't 16 teams deserving of playoff and that too many first-round games would be duds. But, here we have the Big Ten champion against the ACC champion. Dan Lanning vs. Dabo Swinney. This would have been appointment viewing, not a dud. No. 15 South Carolina at No. 2 Georgia SEC expansion and the elimination of divisions took the Georgia-South Carolina rivalry off the schedule in 2024. Could a red-hot Gamecocks team have upset a Georgia squad starting Gunnar Stockton? It's plausible. No. 14 Ole Miss at No. 3 Texas Conferences are so big now that teams don't play half the other teams in their own league. Here we have another matchup of two SEC teams that didn't play in the regular season. The Jekyll-and-Hyde Rebels whipped Georgia but lost to Kentucky. If the good version of Ole Miss showed its face, this game could have been a doozy. No. 13 Miami at No. 4 Penn State Are you liking these matchups yet? How about this one, pitting Cam Ward against Penn State's stout defense. In the playoff that actually happened, Penn State waltzed to the semifinals by beating SMU and Boise State. This billing with Miami would have been a better matchup. No. 12 Arizona State at No. 5 Notre Dame In the playoff, the Sun Devils gave Texas all it could handle in an overtime loss in the playoff quarterfinals. In this revised bracket, Cam Skattebo would have tested the strength of Notre Dame's defense. Chalk this up as another game I would've enjoyed seeing. No. 11 Alabama at No. 6 Ohio State Holy, moly. What a dream matchup of two college football monsters. Ohio State proved throughout the postseason it was the nation's best team. If Alabama couldn't score a touchdown against Oklahoma, I don't see how it could have solved Ohio State's defense. The game probably wouldn't have lived up to the hype. No. 10 SMU at No. 7 Tennessee The Vols looked pitiful in a playoff loss at Ohio State, but this draw at Neyland Stadium probably would have produced a much different fate. The committee flubbed by awarding SMU a playoff spot. Ten-win Brigham Young, which beat SMU during the regular season, possessed better credentials, but I digress. Alas, we'll live with the committee's choice and figure SMU-Tennessee at least wouldn't have been any worse than what we saw in the playoff with SMU-Penn State or Tennessee-Ohio State. No. 9 Boise State at No. 8 Indiana I detect upset potential. Indiana built its playoff case by consistently beating bad or mediocre teams. That's not nothing, but Boise State showed in a 37-34 loss at Oregon in September it's up for a challenge. This matchup featuring Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty would have pitted an O.G. Cinderella, Boise State, against the 2024 slipper-wearing Hoosiers. No perfect College Football Playoff plan The Kiffin plan and the 5+11 model would have produced the same qualifiers last season. In the 5+11 construct, auto bids would have gone to Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State and Clemson. Once I assigned teams to Kiffin's idea and saw the matchups, I liked his plan more. I daresay these first-round matchups, on the whole, would have been better in quality than those served up in last season's 12-team playoff. "There's still flaws in every system," Kiffin said, "but the best system should be 16, and it should be the 16 best" teams. "Get rid of automatics, and figure out a system to get the best 16 teams in." Doesn't sound half bad. The man with the tan cooked up a worthy plan. Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@ and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
USA Today
9 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
How to watch Nebraska vs. Holy Cross today: Time, TV channel for the baseball tournament
How to watch Nebraska vs. Holy Cross today: Time, TV channel for the baseball tournament The Nebraska Cornhuskers' baseball team will play in a do-or-die game in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday morning. The Huskers will face the Holy Cross Crusaders in an elimination game from Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Holy Cross fell to North Carolina 4-0 in the opening game of the Chapel Hill Regional. On Friday night, Nebraska lost to Oklahoma 7-4. The winner of the Cornhuskers and the Crusaders matchup will play the loser of the Sooners and the Tar Heels at 11 a.m. CT on Sunday morning. Nebraska enters Saturday with an overall record of 32-28 and a 15-15 mark in the Big Ten. Holy Cross is 31-26 on the season with a 17-8 record in the Patriot League. The Crusaders qualified for the NCAA Tournament after winning the 2025 Patriot League Tournament Championship. The 2025 tournament consists of 64 teams at 16 different four-team regional sites in a double-elimination format. Once eight teams are left, those eight teams will travel to Omaha, Nebraska, for the Men's College World Series. The 2025 tournament features 29 conference champions and 35 teams that received at-large bids. Watch Nebraska vs. Holy Cross live on ESPN+ Here's how to watch the Nebraska vs. Holy Cross game today, including time, TV schedule, and streaming information: What channel is Nebraska vs. Holy Cross on today? TV Channel: N/A Livestream: ESPN+ Nebraska vs. Holy Cross will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the regional round of the NCAA baseball tournament. Wes Durham and Danan Hughes will call the game from the booth at Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Streaming options for the game include ESPN+. Nebraska vs. Holy Cross time today Date: Saturday, May 31 Saturday, May 31 Start time: 11 a.m. CT The Nebraska vs. Holy Cross game starts at 11 a.m. CT from Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Chapel Hill Regional May 30 (Game 1) : North Carolina 4 vs. Holy Cross 0 - FINAL : North Carolina 4 vs. Holy Cross 0 - FINAL May 30 (Game 2) : Nebraska 4 vs. Oklahoma 7 - FINAL : Nebraska 4 vs. Oklahoma 7 - FINAL May 31 (Game 3) : Holy Cross (0-1) vs. Nebraska (0-1) - 11 a.m. CT : Holy Cross (0-1) vs. Nebraska (0-1) - 11 a.m. CT May 31 (Game 4) : North Carolina (1-0) vs. Oklahoma (1-0) - 5 p.m. CT : North Carolina (1-0) vs. Oklahoma (1-0) - 5 p.m. CT June 1 (Game 5) : Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4 - 11 a.m. CT : Winner Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4 - 11 a.m. CT June 1 (Game 6) : Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5 - 5 p.m. CT : Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5 - 5 p.m. CT June 2 (Game 7): Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5 (if necessary) We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn't influence our coverage. Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinions.
USA Today
16 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Oregon vs Utah Valley live updates, score: Highlights, predictions for NCAA Tournament
Oregon vs Utah Valley live updates, score: Highlights, predictions for NCAA Tournament The Oregon Ducks face Utah Valley in the Eugene Regional of 2025 NCAA Baseball Tournament at PK Park on Friday night, looking to kick off their postseason run on a high note after a wildly successful regular season. Oregon (42-14 overall) enters the 64-team tournament field as the No. 12 overall seed. As the top seed in their four-team, double-elimination regional, the Ducks host the Wolverines, the Arizona Wildcats, and the Cal Poly Mustangs. Oregon enters the NCAA Tournament after winning the Big Ten Conference regular-season championship but getting knocked out of the Big Ten tournament by the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Watch Oregon Ducks vs. Utah Valley Wolverines on ESPN+ (Free Trial) Follow along for live updates from the 2025 Eugene Regional matchup between the Ducks and Wolverines. What channel is the Oregon Ducks vs. Utah Valley on today? TV Channel: ESPNU/ESPN+ Livestream:ESPN+ (free trial) The Oregon Ducks vs. Utah Valley game will be broadcast on ESPNU and via the streaming service ESPN+. The game will be called by Roxy Bernstein and Wes Clements at PK Park in Eugene, Oregon. Oregon Ducks vs. Utah Valley time today Date: Friday, May 30, 2025 Friday, May 30, 2025 Start time: 6:00 p.m. PT Oregon baseball vs. Utah Valley odds, betting line, spread Odds according to BetMGM. Spread: Oregon (-4.5) Oregon (-4.5) Over/Under: 12.5 12.5 Money Line: Oregon (-325), Utah Valley (+240) Oregon, Utah Valley national championship odds Odds according to BetMGM. Oregon: +2500 +2500 Utah Valley: +50000 Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
