Date reportedly set for KU’s return trip to N.C. State

Kansas head coach Bill Self watches as North Carolina State brings the ball up the court during the first half on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
The second half of the Kansas men’s basketball team’s home-and-home series with N.C. State is set, according to a report on Wednesday morning.
Jon Rothstein of College Hoops Today reported that the Jayhawks and Wolfpack will face off on Dec. 13 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The two teams played at Allen Fieldhouse on Dec. 14, 2024, and KU emerged with a 75-60 victory.
N.C. State had reached the 2024 Final Four but went just 12-19 and 5-15 in ACC play during the 2024-25 campaign and fired head coach Kevin Keatts, replacing him with Will Wade, recently at McNeese and formerly of LSU, VCU and Chattanooga.
KU has won 13 straight games against N.C. State after losing the first-ever meeting between the two schools in 1958 in Lawrence. Self and Wade have never faced off as head coaches, although Wade was an assistant to Shaka Smart on the 2011 VCU team that upset KU in the NCAA Tournament on its way to the Final Four.
The Jayhawks will make two trips to the Research Triangle during the 2025-26 season as they also face North Carolina at the Dean E. Smith Center on Nov. 14; they will complete a trio of schools from the Triangle by taking on Duke in a neutral-site matchup at Madison Square Garden four days after that. KU beat all three early in the 2024-25 campaign, though two of those wins came at home.
KU is also expected to play three games at the Players Era tournament in Las Vegas over the course of Thanksgiving week, and the Jayhawks will renew the Border Showdown against Missouri in a neutral-site contest at the T-Mobile Center in December.