Villanova and Michigan finalizing an agreement for a home-and-home men’s basketball series
Pending a signed agreement, the Wildcats are adding another marquee opponent to their 2025-26 schedule.
The 2025-26 nonconference schedule for Villanova likely will have another marquee opponent.
The Wildcats, pending a signed agreement, will travel to face Michigan to begin a home-and-home basketball series that will have the Wolverines coming to the area during the 2026-27 season, sources said, confirming a report from CBS Sports.
Michigan is expected to be one of the better teams in college basketball next season and likely will ranked in the top 10 nationally when the season begins. The Wolverines are bringing in a strong transfer portal class that features Pennsauken’s Yaxel Lendeborg, an Alabama-Birmingham transfer who tested NBA draft waters before deciding to head to Ann Arbor.
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The trip to Michigan — a date has not been announced — will be an early test for the new-look Wildcats under new coach Kevin Willard. It’s also not the first trip to face a Top 25 team. The Wildcats will open the season in Las Vegas, where they will face a BYU team led by top 2025 recruit and likely top 2026 NBA draft pick AJ Dybantsa.
That opening-night event in the Hall of Fame series is part of a doubleheader that also features a game between Arizona and reigning national champion Florida.
The addition of Michigan brings Villanova’s nonconference schedule closer to being complete. Besides Michigan and BYU, Villanova is scheduled to play, in no order: Duquesne, Queens, Sacred Heart, and three games against Big 5 opponents. That means eight games are accounted for. Villanova usually plays 11 games before its 20-game Big East slate tips off.
Villanova and Michigan have met four times since the 2014-15 season. The Wildcats are 3-1 against the Wolverines, a record that includes a victory in the 2018 national championship game. The teams last met in 2022 in a Sweet 16 game in San Antonio, Texas, where Villanova won en route to a Final Four appearance that was followed by the surprising retirement of Jay Wright.
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Both programs look a lot different than they did in 2022. Villanova is on its second coach since Wright left, and Michigan is now coached by Dusty May.
Villanova begins offseason workouts in early June. The Wildcats have just two returning scholarship players, Tyler Perkins and Matthew Hodge, and only one player, Perkins, who saw action in a 2024-25 season that ended with Kyle Neptune being fired and Willard being hired.