Typically, the non-conference schedule of a power conference school is full of “buy games”, where the larger school pays a smaller school to fill out their schedule with a low-stress home game.

Penn State men’s basketball’s schedule, when revealed, will likely feature many of those, but it was announced on Thursday that the Nittany Lions will be going on the road against a brand new Division-I school in November, visiting 1,550-seat The Hazell Center to play New Haven on Saturday, November 8 at a time to be determined.

New Haven spent the 2024-25 season in Division 2’s Northeast-10 Conference, but will be moving up to the Northeast Conference (NEC) in Division I for the 2025-26 season. They will host the Nittany Lions in their first home game as a Division I school and, according to NEC Basketball insider Nelson Castillo, will be the first NEC school to host a Big Ten school in a college basketball game.

It will be Penn State’s first true road non-conference game since November 29, 2022, at Clemson.

Penn State hoops’ non-conference schedule will continue to take shape over the coming weeks and months. The other two known games are the home opener scheduled for Wednesday, November 3 against Fairfield and the Monday, November 22 game against Providence at a neutral site in the Hall of Fame Showcase.