Gonzaga men’s basketball announces 2024-25 schedule

Bulldogs lock in 31-game regular season slate that features at least five matchups against 2024 NCAA Tournament teams in nonconference play

Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

The Gonzaga men’s basketball program has put the final touches on its official 2024-25 nonconference schedule. 

Riddled with high-profile matchups at neutral site venues from coast to coast, the 31-game regular season slate appears to feature as rigorous of a nonconference stretch as Mark Few and company have ever put together in his 25 years as head coach of the Bulldogs. In total, at least five of Gonzaga’s 13 nonleague games are against teams that qualified for 2024 NCAA Tournament, one of which includes a date with the team that’s won the past two tournaments — UConn — and a juicy season-opener at the Spokane Arena between the two programs that played in the 2021 national championship game.

The likely top-25 matchup with Baylor on Nov. 4 will officially tip-off the 2024-25 regular season for the Zags, who figure to be near the top 10 range in the preseason polls after returning seven of their top eight scorers from last season’s Sweet 16 team, as well as add a handful of impactful transfers and intriguing young talents to the mix. Gonzaga is ranked No. 4 in Blue Ribbon Yearbook’s Top 25 and No. 8 in Bart Torvik’s 2025 T-Rank.

Prior to the Bears game, the Bulldogs will head down to Palm Springs, California, to take on USC in an exhibition game on Oct. 26. The Trojans don’t look the same as they did when the Zags met them in Las Vegas last season. USC lost Isaiah Collier, Boogie Ellis, Bronny James and nine other scholarships when Andy Enfield left for SMU. Now under Eric Musselman, the retooled Trojans rank No. 50 in Torvik’s T-Rank. 

Gonzaga returns to Spokane to host Warner Pacific, an NAIA school from Portland, Oregon, in an exhibition on Oct. 30. The Knights (5-23, 3-19 CCC) finished second to last in the Cascade Collegiate Conference in 2023-24. Lewis-Clark State, which finished second in the league standings, visited The Kennel for an exhibition game last season; Eastern Oregon, another CCC member, played the Zags in a regular season game on Nov. 14.

Ben Gregg’s father, Matt Gregg, is the director of athletics at Warner Pacific. He was previously the head coach of the Warner Pacific women’s basketball program.

After the Bears game, the Bulldogs are back in the Kennel on Nov. 10 when they play Arizona State for the first time. The Sun Devils, entering their first season as a Big 12 member and the 11th under head coach Bobby Hurley, feature five-star recruit Jayden Quaintance. Despite losing five of the team’s top six scorers from last season, ASU sits at No. 67 in Torvik’s projections — up considerably from where it finished last season (127th). The Nov. 10 game is the first of a home-and-home series that will head to Tempe, Arizona, for the 2025-26 season.

UMass-Lowell is in town on Nov. 15, then a trip to the Viejas Arena to face San Diego State is set for Nov. 18. The Aztecs beat the Bulldogs by double-digits at The Kennel last season, though Brian Dutcher’s squad does not look the same as it did then. With Jaedon LeDee, Micah Parrish and Lamont Butler gone, Dutcher and the staff added Nick Boyd, a 6-foot-3 Florida Atlantic transfer with Final Four experience, as well as Wayne McKinney III, a double-digit scorer with San Diego this past season.

Gonzaga’s third home game is on Nov. 20 against Long Beach State, which is coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance under former Zags coach Dan Monson. With Monson now at the helm of Eastern Washington, the Beach are led by former San Diego State assistant Chris Acker. 

Few and company have a week in between the Nov. 20 game and the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas on Nov. 27. The Zags tip off the highly-anticipated multi-team event against West Virginia, followed by a matchup with either Indiana or Louisville. Depending on how the bracket shakes out, Gonzaga could see Arizona on the third day in the championship game.

The Bulldogs get another week-long break before heading to Seattle to meet up with Kentucky at Climate Pledge Arena on Dec. 7. Unlike the previous two meetings between college basketball powers — both of which were Gonzaga victories — the Wildcats are led by head coach Mark Pope, who was the BYU coach before he was named John Calipari’s successor earlier this spring. Big Blue fans haven’t seen the 5-star recruits they were accustomed to seeing from the Calipari regime, but Pope has completely revamped the roster with experienced talent acquired via the portal. 

Seven days later, the Bulldogs see Dan Hurley and the Huskies at Madison Square Garden in New York. UConn’s quest for a third-straight tile will be without starters Donovan Clingan, Stephon Castle and Tristen Newton, all of whom are in the NBA. Hurley brought in top-10 recruit Liam McNeely and two-time All-WCC guard Aidan Mahaney from Saint Mary’s, though perhaps the biggest news this offseason was Alex Karaban announcing his return to Storrs, Connecticut, after testing the draft waters this spring. 

Nicholls State, which finished second in the Southland Conference last season, will be in Spokane on Dec. 18. Bucknell out of the Patriot League rounds out the home game schedule in nonleague play on Dec. 21.

On Dec. 28, the Bulldogs conclude nonconference action with a matchup against UCLA at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. Gonzaga, which has won the previous four head-to-head meetings since 2021, will see a much different UCLA squad than it did in Hawaii this past season. Mick Cronin reeled in a top-20 transfer portal class headlined by two-time Pac-12 All-Defense selection Kobe Johnson from USC, former four-star recruit Eric Daily Jr. from Oklahoma State, former Kentucky commit Skye Clark from Louisville and 6-foot-9 forward Tyler Bilodeau from Oregon State. 

The Bulldogs open an 18-game West Coast Conference slate on Dec. 30 at Pepperdine.