The Wolverine

June-July 2025

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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12 THE WOLVERINE ❱ JUNE/JULY 2025 ❱ INSIDE MICHIGAN ATHLETICS BIG TEN MEN'S BASKETBALL OPPONENTS ANNOUNCED, DUKE SHOWDOWN REPORTED FOR 2025-26 U-M's offseason continues to roll along with its roster building efforts, and now the schedule is coming into focus when it comes to Big Ten opponents. The conference announced on April 29 its yearly opponent designations for the league. Michigan will play home-and- homes in 2025-26 with rivals Michigan State and Ohio State, along with Penn State. The Wolverines also will have seven standalone Big Ten contests at home and seven on the road. This year, their West Coast swing will involve two flights with games at Oregon and Washington, and their home slate will include tilts with the two squads from Los Angeles, UCLA and USC. Dates and tip times will be announced later, but here is how the U-M conference schedule breaks down: Home: Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Wisconsin Away: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Northwestern, Oregon, Purdue, Washington Home and Away: Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State Details about Michigan's nonconference schedule are also starting to come together. The Wolverines will play Wake For- est in Detroit at Little Caesars Arena next season in addition to a road game at TCU (Nov. 14). They also will be part of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, which will be three games over Thanksgiving week. The teams participating in the event are Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Creighton, Gonzaga, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Notre Dame, Oregon, Rutgers, Saint Joseph's, San Diego State, St. John's, Syracuse, Tennessee and UNLV. A neutral-site game with Duke has been rumored for Wash- ington, D.C., in February 2026, first reported by CBS Sports' Matt Norlander. "These games are good for the game of basketball," May said last November. "They're good for our players. They're good for television. They're good for our universities. They bring attention and eyes. They're good for recruiting. And so, why wouldn't we play them? The NCAA Tournament has proven that if you play as competitive a schedule as possible, they're going to give you the benefit of the doubt. "All those things add up to it being wise for us to play as many games as we can like this. At the end of the year I may be kicking myself, but right now, we think it's going to help us improve." U-M closed out Dusty May's first season in Ann Arbor with a 27-10 record, a 19-win improvement from the previ- ous year. The team won the Big Ten Conference Tournament title with victories over Purdue, Maryland and Wisconsin. Michigan was a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the Sweet 16 in Atlanta, where it eventually lost to top overall seed Auburn. 14 VARSITY TEAMS POST PERFECT MULTIYEAR SCORES IN APR REPORT U-M had 14 of its athletic programs post perfect multiyear scores in the latest Academic Progress Rate (APR) released by the NCAA on May 6. Ten women's programs and four men's programs comprise the output from Ann Arbor. The data from all schools listed include the 2020-21, 2021- 22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years. The programs with perfect scores of 1,000 are men's cross country, women's cross country, men's golf, women's golf, men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics, women's lacrosse, rowing, softball, women's soccer, women's tennis, men's track and field, vol- leyball and water polo. All 27 U-M programs included in the report finished well above the minimum APR threshold (93) needed to be in good standing with the NCAA. The report shows that Michigan had 21 of its 27 varsity programs score a perfect APR of 1,000 during the 2023-24 school year. The women, in particular, handled their busi- ness in the classroom, with 12 of 14 programs posting perfect scores, while nine of 13 men's teams also achieved the mark. APR is the NCAA's measurement of the team's academic performance and is calculated by eligibility, retention and graduation rates on every Division I sports team. The na- tional four-year APR for Division I teams remained at 984 for a fourth consecutive year. — Anthony Broome MAIZE AND BLUE NOTEBOOK In addition to the rigors of the Big Ten, Dusty May's second Michigan men's basketball team will have marquee nonconference matchups with Wake Forest, TCU and, reportedly, Duke. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL

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