Concocting ideal 2025-26 schedules for Rutgers, Seton Hall and Princeton
I went ahead and dreamed up nonconference schedules for the three biggest programs in New Jersey.
I’ve already decided that I will not cover the machinations of the transfer portal beyond a retweet or a single sentence in a newsletter. Your favorite team reached out to a high-scoring guard from the Big South Conference? Cool.
So much of it is a crapshoot (and the sheer volume of players in the portal grows year by year) that I prefer to wait for the dust to settle. What, then, is there to write in a college basketball newsletter in April, when the teams I cover didn’t sniff the postseason?
We may not know who is playing for any of these programs in 2025-26, but we can speculate about where and against whom. Schedule news is already starting to come out nugget by nugget, and I’ve been wanting to synthesize my thoughts at some point.
I had a good laugh the other day about the idea of the Players Era Festival expanding to 32 teams in 2026. Moreover, I loved how this organization gave CBS a scoop, letting them run a story with the phrase “Players Era (PEF) is inflating to 18 teams for next season,” then immediately tweeted a graphic with… 19 team logos in it. (UNLV appears to be the new addition to the Las Vegas-based event.) What a natural number of teams for a tournament! Players Era: continuing to make it up on the fly.
So Rutgers is in bed with the Players Era for the long haul, even though Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey aren’t walking through that door in 2025. It made me wonder: What does an ideal schedule look like for the next iteration of the Scarlet Knights, one with a strong but not spotlight-stealing freshman class and a coach with a ton of pressure to get back to the tournament?
Meanwhile, the Big East has lost both the Gavitt Games with the Big Ten and the Big 12 “Battle” in recent years. How does that affect a Seton Hall program with a bit of a damaged brand after a terrible season? Who could they schedule?
I went ahead and dreamed up nonconference schedules for the three biggest programs in New Jersey – RU, Hall and Princeton. The experiment worked out to be 30% wish-casting and 70% tethered to reality.
The rules: Rutgers and Seton Hall (for now) still have a maximum of 11 nonconference games counting their three-game MTEs, while Princeton has more room to play with because of its shorter conference slate. Each program needs different things out of the 2025-26 season, which I list as “The objective” at the top of each schedule. The opponents are listed in no particular order.
Rutgers
The objective: Improve on the nonconference SOS ranking of 241 – by far the highest of the Steve Pikiell era, by the way – without setting up trap games like a trip to Kennesaw State. You can’t trust seven to 10 Big Ten victories to do the heavy lifting on your at-large NCAA Tournament resume.
at Seton Hall
Three games in the Players Era Festival
2025 participants that Rutgers didn’t play last year: Auburn, Baylor, Creighton, Gonzaga, Houston (which was supposed to be on the 2024 slate), Iowa State, Kansas, Michigan, Oregon, San Diego State, Saint Joseph’s, St. John’s, Syracuse, Tennessee, UNLV.
vs. Princeton
Let’s finally do this. Start a home-and-home. The fans’ appetite is clearly there, and after Princeton beat Rutgers for the second straight year Pikiell said that he’d play the Tigers anywhere. That’s all well and good, but I imagine any home-and-home (or 2-and-1) agreement would let Rutgers have the first home game.
vs. FDU
vs. Monmouth
Two more New Jersey opponents make a return. Rutgers has also faced Rider and Saint Peter’s in recent years.
at Vanderbilt
vs. Georgia Tech
Here’s where I got imaginative. We have here a couple of decent power-conference programs Rutgers could realistically beat next year. I figured they’d be home-and-home agreements, starting one in Piscataway and one on the road. (In this day and age, games like these could also end up at quasi-neutral, off-campus sites, though I’m far less in favor of that.) Vanderbilt made the tournament and wouldn’t be an easy game, but it lets RU dip into the SEC to help its metrics. Karl Hobbs left RU for Georgia Tech two years ago, so Pikiell has a connection there. I see that one similar to RU’s recent home-and-home with Wake Forest.
vs. Central Connecticut State
vs. Wagner
Two small schools to complete the schedule. I like Pat Sellers’ much-improved CCSU program to come back to the RAC after Rutgers feasted on them earlier this decade.
Seton Hall
The objective: A schedule for a rebuilding program that blends a few power-conference opponents with local mid-majors for a steady ramp-up to conference season. Neither too strenuous, nor overly cupcake.
Opponents:
vs. Rutgers
Three games in the Maui Invitational
The field: Arizona State, Boise State, Chaminade, North Carolina State, Texas, USC, Washington State.
Guys, this is a pretty weak field. From what I’ve gathered, the Maui originally contained Baylor, Oregon and UNLV, each of whom peaced out to make multi-year Players Era commitments. ASU, BSU and WSU were added, and while the Broncos have been a better team than their Mountain West counterparts in Las Vegas of late, overall it’s a sharp decline in quality.
NONE of these programs made the dance in 2025. NC State in Year 1 of Will Wade and Texas in Year 1 of Sean Miller are the most intriguing teams. And Seton Hall draws a Chaminade year – if the Pirates aren’t careful, they could be facing a Division II opponent in the seventh-place game.
vs. Monmouth
vs. NJIT
vs. Saint Peter’s
I don’t know if these three opponents are on year-to-year deals with Seton Hall, necessarily. But I don’t think it’s in Holloway’s nature to cancel on King Rice, Grant Billmeier or his former university.
vs. Hofstra
This was a weird one last year, a game meant for UBS Arena that got shifted to Nassau Coliseum because of Disney on Ice. Hofstra went on to win 49-48, a real thing of beauty. Feels like Speedy Claxton owes Holloway one in Newark. At worst, they make it to UBS this time.
at Virginia
I came across this snippet about what an ACC-Big East partnership could look like from commissioner Val Ackerman’s perspective. No one besides Rick Pitino wants a merger, but the leagues certainly make for obvious bedfellows from a strategic alliance standpoint.
Seton Hall just finished 11th in an 11-team league. It wouldn’t work exactly this way, but I decided to count 11 teams down in the ACC standings and found… Virginia. There’s another defense vs. more defense clash for ya. New UVA coach Ryan Odom can’t love what happened when his VCU team faced Seton Hall last November.
vs. Penn
Seton Hall last played an Ivy in 2022 (Yale), before Holloway’s tenure. Let’s do something poetic and bring Fran McCaffery up to Seton Hall, where he once interviewed before choosing Iowa.
vs. St. Thomas Aquinas
A non-D1 to fill out the schedule for the Walsh Gym game. Better this than what happened against Fordham last year.
Princeton
The objective: Another strong schedule (by mid-major standards) that could garner the Tigers some at-large talk if they finish nonconference play, say, 12-1 like two years ago.
at Rutgers
See above. The Tigers wouldn’t have any concern going to Piscataway to start this series if it means a Jadwin return game.
at Loyola Chicago
at Akron
From my understanding, Princeton’s home games against these two in 2024-25 were the start of home-and-home agreements. It would help from a logistical standpoint if Princeton can knock out a Cleveland-Chicago swing in one trip instead of multiple flights.
vs. Merrimack
On the flip side, Merrimack should be coming to Princeton in 2025 after the Tigers beat Jersey Joe Gallo’s zone defense in Massachusetts last year. Gallo hails from Milltown, right up Route 1 from Princeton, and I don’t see him having qualms about going to Jadwin like many other coaches do. (He also just signed a 10-year contract extension at Merrimack.)
vs. Saint Joseph’s
Speaking of qualms! Billy Lange owes Mitch Henderson a game in Jadwin after having the Tigers come to Philly the past two years. In my fantasy-casting of this schedule, it happens. In real life, I can’t be sure.
vs. Hofstra
Feels like it benefits both schools to renew this series after they didn’t meet in 2024-25. Based on the rotation of the previous four games, it would be Princeton’s turn to host. Hofstra’s been a consistently good team under Claxton while being decimated by the transfer portal the past three years or so; I think last year’s losing record was a blip on the radar.
at Monmouth
Henderson and Rice seem to get along and would want to keep playing this Central Jersey series. Monmouth’s turn to host.
at St. John’s
Here’s my big swing. Princeton hasn’t faced a non-Rutgers high-major since the 2023 Sweet 16. But the program used to all the time, and fellow Ivies consistently get buy games against Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, etc. It’s understood that most coaches have been scared to face Princeton in this Evbuomwan/Allocco/Lee/Pierce era. Rick Pitino doesn’t strike me as someone who schedules scared.
A three-game MTE on the road
These MTEs come and go all the time and it would be foolhardy for me to make some sort of prediction. Heck, Princeton brought the team to England two years ago for a Tosan Evbuomwan homecoming – great example of a one-off MTE. This could wrap in some good mid-majors (or even a borderline high-major?) from other parts of the country depending on the host.
at Bucknell
vs. FDU
Filling out the schedule with a few low-majors Princeton has some recent history with.
vs. DeSales
A Division III tune-up game before the Ivy League season begins. This will make some readers mad, but these serve a purpose, and it isn’t like I’ve scheduled two of them, like Princeton has had each of the past four seasons. This brings the schedule to 14 total nonconference games; they’ve been at 15 and 13 the past two years. (Fun fact: I chose DeSales, which Princeton opened the 2018-19 season against, because it’s where I did my undergrad.)
………
Thanks for stopping by. I hope this was a fun read. Let’s clean the glass with some quick news and notes:
Rutgers guard Dylan Harper declared for the NBA draft. He isn’t going to fall past the top three, and most mocks have him cemented at No. 2. So why on earth did ESPN’s Malika Andrews treat this announcement segment with over-acted faux surprise? “Oh, incredible, congratulations Dylan!” she says while literally applauding. “Thank you so much for sharing that with us! That is so incredibly exciting.” It sounded like she was celebrating her little brother for getting into college. I’m not above a “Congrats on the win” to someone I’m interviewing, but my goodness.
I’m curious to see where Tobin Anderson will land. He interviewed at both Drake and Navy, and both HC jobs are now filled. The latest connection is Cleveland State. Jaden Daly also mentioned the possibility of Anderson joining the new staff at Iowa, his home state.
Some former NJ big men have already found new homes: Lathan Sommerville is staying in Rutgers’ league and heading to Washington, and Gus Yalden wound up at Vermont.