Former Pac-12 basketball teams face daunting travel schedules this season
If you thought the football travel schedules were bad for former Pac-12 football teams, wait until you see the basketball schedules.
The 2024-25 college basketball season tips off on Nov. 4, but Arizona State is already hitting the road this weekend - in part to prepare for the rigors of their Big 12 travel schedule.
The Sun Devils are flying to the East Coast this weekend to play Duke in a special preseason scrimmage. At Big 12 basketball media day, Bobby Hurley said he purposely scheduled more nonconference road games to prepare his team for the reality of the Big 12.
"We want to get our players accustomed for these road trips," Hurley said. "We're playing four nonconference home games. I'm not sure any other power conference team would play that little amount of home games. We should be battle tested on neutral sites and on road games. Certainly you can look at the Duke game this weekend and then you can move right to game number three at Gonzaga. We've put ourselves in some challenging situations against some really good teams on the road. Hopefully that will pay dividends as we hit our conference schedule."
Big 12 Road Trips Long, But Manageable
Playing in the Pac-12 last season, the Sun Devils longest road trip was to Seattle to play the Washington Huskies. Phoenix to Seattle is about 1,100 air miles and a three-hour flight. Flights to Pullman to play Washington State and Portland to play Oregon and Oregon State were roughly 1,000 air miles and less than three hours.
Every other road trip was relatively short, which won't be the case in the Big 12.
ASU does not play at UCF this season, which helps. Phoenix to Orlando is a long plane ride and 1,850 air miles. The Sun Devils' longest Big 12 road trip will be at Cincinnati (about 1,600 air miles) on Saturday, Jan. 18, followed by a game at West Virginia on Tuesday, Jan. 21. Both games are in the Eastern Time Zone and will likely require the Sun Devils to stay in the area Sunday and Monday.
Then there are trips to Kansas (1,000 air miles) and Kansas State (950 miles), as well as back-to-back road games at Oklahoma State (Sunday, Feb. 9) and Texas Tech (Wednesday, Feb. 12).
Definitely tougher than the Pac-12, but manageable.
Stanford, Cal Have Tough Roads
The Big Ten and ACC schedules are out of hand.
UCLA, ranked No. 22 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, will play Big Ten Conference road games at Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue and Northwestern.
But that doesn't hold a candle to Stanford and Cal. In their first season in the ACC the Cardinal will play at Clemson, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, North Carolina, SMU, Georgia Tech, Duke, Notre Dame and Louisville. Cal will play at Pittsburgh, Clemson, North Carolina, NC State, SMU, Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville and Notre Dame.
Stanford struggled in the Pac-12 last season (8-12) with a schedule that featured 18 games in the Pacific Time Zone and two in the Mountain. How do you think they'll fare playing eight road games that are three time zones away?
More Arizona State & Big 12 Analysis
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. One of his favorite memories was covering the 1999 Fiesta Bowl - the first BCS National Championship Game - at Sun Devil Stadium.