Cal Men Not Part of ACC/SEC Basketball Challenge in 2025-26

Published 1 day ago• 2 minute read

The ACC announced on Thursday the pairings and dates for the 2025-26 ACC/SEC Challenge in basketball, but Cal will not be part of the Challenge on the men’s side.

Cal will participate in the women’s ACC/SEC Challenge, with the Golden Bears women playing a road game against Missouri on December 4.

But the Cal men will not be playing in one of the 16 men’s ACC/SEC Challenge games.

The ACC consists of 18 basketball schools, but the SEC has only 16 basketball members. So two ACC men’s teams and two ACC women’s teams will not be part of the Challenge in the coming season. Cal and Stanford are the two ACC men’s teams that won’t be involved, and the Boston College and Wake Forest women will not participate..

In 2024-25, which was Cal’s first season in the ACC, the Golden Bears men played a December 3 road game against Missouri as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge. Cal lost that game 98-93 on its way to a 14-19 season.

The Cal women, who reached the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019 this past season, hosted Alabama as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge in 2024-25, and beat the the 19th-ranked Crimson Tide. Cal will be road team in the Challenge this coming season when it travels to Missouri, which went 14-18 overall and 3-13 in the SEC in 2024-25.

Games in the ACC/SEC Challenge will be televised across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ACC Network and SEC Network.

Florida at Duke

UNC at Kentucky

Tennessee at Syracuse

Texas A&M at Pittsburgh

Missouri at Notre Dame

Georgia at Florida State

Oklahoma at Wake Forest

Miami at Ole Miss

Virginia Tech at South Carolina

NC State at Auburn

Louisville at Arkansas