Cal Men's Hoops to Face Duke, North Carolina at Haas Pavilion

Haas Pavilion will host the Atlantic Coast Conference’s most high-profile men’s basketball teams next season, including blue bloods Duke and North Carolina.

The ACC unveiled its conference schedule on Wednesday and Cal has a home slate that should be attractive to Golden Bears fans. 

Other ACC teams visiting Berkeley include Louisville and Notre Dame, along with Clemson, Pitt and SMU. The Bears will play Stanford and Georgia Tech both home and away.

The home schedule won’t merely be attractive, it will be challenging. 

Duke, UNC and Louisville were all included in ESPN’s way-too-early Top-25 rankings last month. Duke, UNC, Louisville, Clemson and SMU finished among the top-6 in the 2024-25 ACC standings.

Cal’s 2025-26 ACC road schedule includes Virginia, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Syracuse and Wake Forest.

The only ACC team Cal will miss next season is North Carolina State, which finished 16th in the 18-team league standings last season but is expected to be much stronger next year.

Specific dates and game times will be announced in September, the conference said.

The ACC played a 20-game conference schedule since 2019-20 but announced earlier this month teams will play just 18 league games next season.

Cal is coming off a 14-19 season in coach Mark Madsen’s second year. The Bears were 6-14 and finished 15th in the ACC.

Duke, which won the ACC with a 19-1 record last season and was 35-4 overall, lose three freshmen — Cooper Flagg, Son Knueppel and Khaman Maluach — who are projected as first-round NBA draft picks next month. Flagg is a consensus choice as the top draft pick.

The Blue Devils have reloaded with a recruiting class ranked No. 1 in the country by 247Sports and featuring brothers Cameron and Cayden Boozer, top-25 prospects and the sons of former Duke and NBA star Carlos Boozer.

CAL’S 2025-26 ACC MEN'S BASKETBALL OPPONENTS

Home & Away: Stanford, Georgia Tech

Home: Clemson, Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, SMU

Away: Boston College, Florida State, Miami, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest 

Miss: North Carolina State

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