UConn head coach Dan Hurley tries to pump up his team during the second half on Friday, Dec. 1, 2023 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

A pair of recent national champions will soon face off once again, as the Kansas men’s basketball team is expected to begin a home-and-home series with UConn.

Jon Rothstein of College Hoops Today reported on Wednesday morning that the Jayhawks will host the Huskies at Allen Fieldhouse on Dec. 2, with a return date in Connecticut at some point during the 2026-27 season.

This game provides KU its first marquee home opponent of the nonconference schedule — other key games are on the road, like at North Carolina or N.C. State, or at neutral sites, like Duke or the Players Era tournament matchups — and also effectively replaces the timeslot in which both teams had been playing the now-defunct Big East-Big 12 Battle with a game between programs from the same conferences.

In fact, KU and UConn very recently faced off in that same event just two seasons ago, when key 3-pointers by Kevin McCullar Jr. and late-game free throws by an inspired KJ Adams allowed the Jayhawks to beat the reigning (and future) national champions 69-65.

That is the most recent of KU’s four all-time victories against UConn; the Huskies have never beaten the Jayhawks.

UConn had something of a down year last season, if only by the standards of its previous back-to-back championship campaigns under head coach Dan Hurley. The Huskies went 24-11 and 14-6 in the Big East as part of a year that featured three straight losses in the Maui Invitational and a 6-6 stretch in conference play. They won their first game as a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament and pushed eventual national champion Florida to the brink in the second round but lost 77-75.

The Huskies’ roster for next season includes returning all-conference forward Alex Karaban and breakout guard Solo Ball along with marquee Georgia transfer Silas Demary Jr. and a four-man freshman class led by guard Braylon Mullins and center Eric Reibe.

Hurley had mentioned last December that his school was working on a home-and-home series with KU. A contract for the series had not been completed by season’s end, as it was not included in a Kansas Open Records Act request received by the Journal-World on March 31.

KU’s nonconference schedule is now almost complete, with reported home games against Green Bay, Princeton and UConn; road games at UNC and N.C. State; a Champions Classic matchup with Duke, a Border Showdown at the T-Mobile Center and three more neutral-site games in Las Vegas for the Players Era. That essentially means three slots for nonleague games remain, all of which will likely be at home.