It’s the middle of the summer and college basketball is still months away, but the momentum is slowly building as the Virginia Cavaliers continues to finalize their schedule for the 2025-26 season. Per CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, the most recent addition will be the Virginia Cavaliers taking on the Ohio State Buckeyes on Valentine’s Day: February 14, 2026.

The latest trend in the ever-changing college basketball scheduling landscape is for power conference teams to play a team from a different power conference during traditional conference play. It’s all about crafting a complete resume, and since the ACC has suffered from recent poor play in the non-conference in November and December, they’re looking for opportunities to play quality non-conference opponents later in the season.

This matchup with the Buckeyes should generate lots of attention from the NCAA Selection Committee, as long as both teams are in NCAA Tournament contention. And, more importantly, it’s a neutral site game which is worth more to the committee than a home game for UVA.

As far as history goes, there’s not much bad blood between Virginia and Ohio State. They’ve played just twice, in a home-and-home series back in 2015 and 2016. Virginia won both of those matchups narrowly (64-58 and 63-61). Unsurprisingly, Malcolm Brogdon led all scorers in the 2015 matchup with 22 points while shooting an exceptional 6/10 from three. London Perrantes paced the ‘Hoos with 19 points in the two-point win in Charlottesville in 2016.

Ryan Odom and the Cavaliers will have an opportunity to stay undefeated against the Buckeyes when they meet in February. It won’t be easy. Jake Diebler enters his second season as the head coach for Ohio State, after narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament field in Year One. And to make things even more difficult for Virginia, the Buckeyes leading scorer and star guard Bruce Thornton will be returning for his senior season after averaging 17.7 points and 4.6 assists last season (50% from the field and 42% from three).

All things considered, this matchup is a step in the right direction and it further demonstrates Virginia’s commitment to embracing the new, strange landscape of college basketball. The ‘Hoos are being flexible in their roster and schedule construction, and it should only serve to help them as they seek to once again become a mainstay in the NCAA Tournament.

Plus, who doesn’t love a little cross-conference college basketball cinema on Valentine’s Day.