On Wednesday, the Michigan State men’s basketball program announced it will host Arkansas for a home-and-home series during the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 seasons.
The Spartans will host the Razorbacks at the Breslin Center in East Lansing this coming season, with a date of Saturday, Nov. 8 scheduled for the matchup. Arkansas will return the favor next season by hosting MSU in Fayetteville, but the exact date for the 2026-2027 game has not yet been determined.
The matchups will put two Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famers up against each other, as Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo faces off against Arkansas’ John Calipari.
The 2025-2026 game will be the sixth all-time meeting between Izzo and Calipari. With a 3-2 record, Calipari holds a slight advantage in head-to-head meetings against Izzo (2-2 at Kentucky and 1-0 at Memphis). The last matchup took place in the 2022 Champions Classic In Indianapolis, with Izzo’s Spartans getting an 86-77 double-overtime victory over Calipari’s Wildcats.
Michigan State and Arkansas have only played two times historically, with the Spartans winning both games on neutral floors. The upcoming game in November will mark the first matchup in which a game between the two programs is played on a home floor.
The first meeting between the Spartans and Razorbacks was in the 1991 Maui Classic championship game in Hawaii. Michigan State beat No. 2-ranked Arkansas by a final score of 86-71 on Nov. 27 of that year.
Four years later on Nov. 28, 1995, as part of the Great Eight Tournament played at The Palace in Auburn Hills in Michigan, Michigan State once again defeated a ranked Arkansas team (No. 25), 75-72. This was in Izzo’s first year as MSU’s head coach, and it was his second career victory and just his fourth game coached overall.
Arkansas is coming off a 22-14 campaign in 2024-2025, which was Calipari’s first year at the helm for the Razorbacks. Arkansas won two games in the 2025 NCAA Tournament as a No. 10-seed, including victories over No. 7-seeded Kansas and a big upset over No. 2-seeded St. John’s, before falling to No. 3-seeded Texas Tech in overtime in the Sweet 16.
Michigan State finished the 2024-2025 campaign with a 30-7 overall record, and a 17-3 record in Big Ten play. The Spartans captured a regular-season conference title for the 11th time under Izzo. MSU advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament, but eventually lost to No. 1-overall-seed Auburn, 70-64.
