Villanova to play Wisconsin for the next two seasons, starting with a road game in December

The Gavitt Games — a series between Big East and Big Ten teams that lasted eight seasons — might have ended in 2023, but Villanova is bent on keeping a healthy relationship with the Big Ten.

Villanova is finalizing an agreement with Wisconsin to travel to Milwaukee for a Dec. 19 game against the Badgers at Fiserv Forum, a familiar venue for the Wildcats, who play Marquette there annually. A return trip to Wells Fargo Center will come during the 2026-27 season, a source confirmed after an initial report from CBS Sports.

Wisconsin, of course, typically plays its home games on its Madison, Wis., campus, which is about 80 miles west of Milwaukee. The Badgers last hosted a regular season game in Milwaukee in 2022, when they beat Stanford at American Family Field, the Brewers’ ballpark. Wisconsin did play at Fiserv Forum this past season as the road team in an 88-74 loss to Marquette. The Badgers also will host Oklahoma in October for an exhibition game in Milwaukee.

» READ MORE: ‘How absurd is that?’: Pope Leo XIV, once just a Villanova student named Bob, is a Wildcats basketball fan

The report of another Villanova Big Ten opponent came after news broke Thursday that Villanova was scheduling a home-and-home with Michigan, which also begins with a road game in the 2025-26 season. The date for Villanova’s game in Ann Arbor, Mich., is not yet known.

Wisconsin was a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and, after an opening-round win over Montana, fell to sixth-seeded BYU in one of the better games of the tournament’s first weekend. The Badgers likely will find themselves nationally ranked when the season begins.

With games on the calendar against BYU (Nov. 3), Michigan (TBD), and Wisconsin (Dec. 19), Kevin Willard’s first Villanova team will be tested before the Big East slate begins. Nine nonconference games are now accounted for, with two more likely to come.