Big 12 basketball schedule will have new look for Kansas State Wildcats next season

Things are going to look different when Kansas State begins the Big 12 portion of its basketball schedule next season.

Every team in the conference will play an expanded slate of 20 games against an unbalanced lineup of league opponents. For the Wildcats, that means they will play five Big 12 rivals exclusively at home, five more exclusively on the road and then five more twice with games being played both home and away.

Here is how the conference pairings will look:

• Home and away: Arizona State, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma State.

• Home: Arizona, Colorado, Houston, Texas Tech, West Virginia.

• Away: Baylor, BYU, UCF, TCU, Utah.

That schedule breakdown, which was announced by the Big 12 on Thursday, should come as excellent news for any EMAW fan with season tickets. Next season, K-State will host premier conference games at Bramlage Coliseum against Arizona, Houston, Iowa State and Kansas.

All four of those teams are expected to be ranked inside the top 15 next season. Home games against Colorado, Cincinnati, Texas Tech and West Virginia could also turn out to be strong games.

On the flip side, just about all of their road games could be daunting. The Wildcats lost at Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma State and BYU last season. Playing those same opponents on the road this season may not be easy. And that doesn’t even include away trips to Baylor, UCF, TCU and Utah.

The Big 12 basketball schedule is always a grind. But it will be even longer than usual next season as the conference goes from 18 league games to 20.

K-State coach Jerome Tang and his team can begin preparing for it now.