Gonzaga to Play Oregon, UCLA at Climate Pledge Arena in Next Two Seasons

Gonzaga is heading back to Seattle. The Zags will play Oregon at Climate Pledge Arena on Jan. 30, 2027, and will return to the same building during the 2027-28 season to face UCLA, though a date for that game has not been set. Both games extend neutral-neutral series Gonzaga has struck with Big Ten opponents, and both keep alive a scheduling habit that has become nearly annual business for the program.

The Oregon game is the second leg of a series that opened last season when Gonzaga beat the Ducks 91-82 at Portland's Moda Center. The UCLA matchup continues a rivalry the two programs rekindled this offseason with a neutral-neutral arrangement that begins this fall, when Gonzaga travels to Anaheim to play the Bruins on Dec. 5 at the Honda Center.

Climate Pledge Arena has hosted Gonzaga nonconference games in four of the last five seasons, and the building has not always been kind to the Zags. Mark Few's teams dropped their first three trips there, falling 91-82 to Alabama in 2021, 76-63 to Connecticut in 2023 and 90-89 in overtime to Kentucky in 2024. Gonzaga finally turned the tide last season with an 82-72 win over UCLA, then came back about a month later and handled Seattle University 71-50 in West Coast Conference play.

Adding Oregon locks Gonzaga into 10 nonconference games against high-major competition in 2026-27, with the possibility of an 11th if the Zags reach the championship game of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. The schedule also squeezes in at least two nonleague games during Gonzaga's Pac-12 slate, including a Feb. 20 date with Duke at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

That is a heavy nonconference workload for a program already adjusting to a new conference home, and it says something about how Gonzaga still values these high-profile neutral-site games even as its regular-season calendar gets more crowded. Seattle remains a proven draw for the Zags, and pairing that market with a Big Ten opponent every year is smart business as much as it is basketball.

Oregon Turnover and History

The rosters will look almost nothing alike when Gonzaga and Oregon meet again. Of the 18 players who logged minutes in last season's matchup, only Gonzaga's Braden Huff and Oregon's Sean Stewart are still around. Oregon coach Dana Altman lost his top two scorers, Nate Bittle and Jackson Shelstad, but restocked the roster with freshman Tajh Ariza, son of former NBA player Trevor Ariza, along with transfers Tyrone Riley IV (San Francisco), Taylor Bol Bowen (Alabama), Andrew Meadow (Boise State), Pharaoh Compton (San Diego State), Dwayne Aristode (Arizona), Jasper Johnson (Kentucky) and Fred Payne (Boston College).

Since Few's coaching tenure at Gonzaga began in 1999, the Zags have met his alma mater only three times: a 70-64 loss in the 1999 Far West Classic, a 73-72 overtime win in the 2019 Battle 4 Atlantis semifinals, and last season's 91-82 win in Portland. In that most recent meeting, Braeden Smith scored a season-high 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting, Huff added 20 and Graham Ike finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Bittle, a former Gonzaga recruit, led all scorers with 28 points and nine rebounds for Oregon.

With so few holdovers on either side, the rematch at Climate Pledge Arena will feel less like a continuation and more like a fresh measuring stick, one that also happens to be a homecoming of sorts for a series that has been fought at neutral sites in three different cities since Few took over the program.

More Info

• Gonzaga returning to Climate Pledge Arena for nonleague games in 2026-27 and 2027-28 | Spokesman-Review Sports