Apr 17, 2026, 10:23 AM ET<\/p>\n
Notre Dame<\/a> and Villanova<\/a> will play a men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader in Rome to open the season on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n The Catholic schools are promoting the matchups as a chance to celebrate their shared mission and heritage. The jointly hosted event will include “special programming that brings together academics, athletics and spirituality,” Villanova said in its announcement.<\/p>\n “From academic engagement and cultural immersion to shared worship and athletics, this journey offers a profound opportunity to grow in mind, body and spirit,” said the Rev. Peter Donohue, Villanova’s school president.<\/p>\n The schools said Pope Leo XIV, an Augustinian friar and Villanova alumnus, was the inspiration for scheduling the game.<\/p>\n Those attending the Italian excursion will have the opportunity for a shared Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, a planned papal audience with Pope Leo XIV before the games and private tours of the Vatican Museums.<\/p>\n College teams playing overseas is expected to become more common amid a growing influx of international talent. Twenty-three of the 62 players on Final Four rosters listed a foreign country as their hometown, and NCAA data shows the number of international players on D-I rosters (888) has more than doubled since 2010.<\/p>\n Games in Croatia and Serbia are in the works and planned for November as part of a new College Basketball International Series launched by Intersport and Rochelle Management Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apr 17, 2026, 10:23 AM ET Notre Dame and Villanova will play a men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-712516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116420660641008559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}