The Arizona Wildcats will become Saturday matinee regulars during the upcoming Big 12 season, though fans will have to tap around their remotes more often to catch them.
In announcing its remaining tipoff times and television coverage Tuesday, the Big 12 revealed it is allowing the Wildcats to play half of their 18 conference games on Saturdays during daytime hours while only scheduling one game at 9 p.m. — their regular-season finale at Colorado on March 7.
While Fox/FS1, TNT, and Peacock will begin showing Big 12 men’s basketball games this season, six of the Wildcats’ Saturday games will still be shown on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.
Of UA’s other Saturday Big 12 games, CBS will carry the Wildcats’ Jan. 24 game with West Virginia at McKale Center, ABC has their Feb. 21 game at Houston, and Peacock will broadcast UA’s Jan. 3 Big 12 opener at Utah.
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TCU coach Jamie Dixon, shown at McKale Center during the Wildcats’ Big 12 opener last season, and the Horned Frogs will host Arizona for one of the Wildcats’ nine daytime Saturday games during the upcoming conference season.
On weeknights during the Big 12 season, ESPN platforms will carry six Arizona games, including Big Monday matchups with BYU (Jan. 26 at Provo, Utah), Kansas (Feb. 9 at Lawrence, Kansas) and Iowa State (March 2 at McKale Center). FS1 will carry Arizona’s three other Big 12 weekday games, all over the first three Wednesdays in January.
Because of Fox’s contractual arrangement with the Big East, FS1 will also show UA’s Nov. 19 game at UConn. TNT will not carry any of UA’s Big 12 games but will show two UA nonconference games: The Wildcats’ Nov. 3 opener against Florida in Las Vegas, as part of a contract with the Basketball Hall of Fame, and UA’s Nov. 7 home opener against Utah Tech.
In addition, CBS Sports Network will carry one UA game, its Nov. 24 matchup with Denver at McKale Center.
In all, Arizona will have 15 of its 31 games on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, plus five home nonconference games also to be streamed via ESPN Plus: Against NAU, Norfolk State, Abilene Christian, Bethune-Cookman and South Dakota State.
A total of seven UA games will be streaming-only this season, the five ESPN Plus nonconference games and two on Peacock: The Wildcats’ Jan. 3 game at Utah and a Nov. 13 game against UCLA in Los Angeles.
Of 13 of Arizona’s nonconference games, nine will begin before or at 7:30 p.m., including a 2 p.m. home game with Norfolk State on Nov. 29, and none will be held at 9 p.m. The Wildcats had four 9 p.m. games last season, but will only have to play their March 7 game at Colorado in that window this season.
Ranked No. 13 in the Associated Press preseason Top 25 poll, Arizona has built an ambitious schedule that includes nine ranked teams, including six who are ranked above it in the AP Poll: Houston (2), Florida (3), UConn (4), BYU (8), Texas Tech (10) and UCLA (12).
The Wildcats will also face Iowa State (16), Kansas (19) and Auburn (20), plus San Diego State, which picked up the 27th-most points in the preseason poll.
However, the Wildcats will be playing only 18 Big 12 games after the league cut back from 20, and they will not participate in a major multi-team event; instead, hosting its own “Wildcat Classic†event with games against Denver and Norfolk State over Thanksgiving week.
The Big 12 announced that 20 total conference games will be shown on over-the-air networks, including Arizona's CBS and ABC games, and that 55 conference games will air on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.
The conference's announcement effectively completes Arizona's 2025-26 schedule for the season, which will begin on Nov. 3 against Florida. The Wildcats' Big 12 season will start on Jan. 3 at Utah.
Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at bpascoe@tucson.com. On X(Twitter): @brucepascoe
Bruce Pascoe
Reporter
