NMJC (MBB) Announces Non-Con Schedule for 2025-26

The New Mexico Junior College men's basketball program unveiled the team's non-conference schedule for the 2025-26 season this week.

 

Under the direction of fourth-year head coach Luke Mackay, NMJC hosts 12 non-conference foes at Caster Activity Center before WJCAC play begins in January 2026. The T-Birds' regular season begins at home in conjunction with NMJC Homecoming 2025 where NMJC will open with Dallas College-Brookhaven on Saturday, November 1st before playing Kansas Jayhawk Conference member Fort Hays Tech on the following Monday.

 

The T-Birds will play their first eight games at home, with two additional Jayhawk foes in Pratt and Seward, as well as visits from Otero College and NOC-Tonkawa following Homecoming weekend.

 

NMJC will again hit the road for a Thanksgiving trip, playing in the Collin County Classic on Nov. 28-29. Awaiting them will be Murray State College out of Oklahoma's Region II, as well as the host Collin County on Saturday.

 

The non-conference slate wraps up in December with the T-Birds playing four games in seven days, hosting Lamar (Dec. 11), Ranger College (Dec. 13), North Platte (Dec. 16) and UA-Cossatot (Dec. 18).

In Mackay's third year as head coach, the Thunderbirds finished 24-7 in the 2024-25 season and were ranked as high as No. 2 in the NJCAA Poll. The campaign also featured a 14-0 start – the best in program history – while also matching the program-record for consecutive wins.

 

In all, 10 of NMJC's 14 non-conference opponents are DI, which should help maintain the T-Birds' Top-25 strength of schedule nationally. The T-Birds – and South Plains - are the only WJCAC programs that don't have a non-NJCAA program on its schedule.

 

"We are really looking forward to the 25-26 season," said Mackay. "As usual, the WJCAC schedule will be the toughest in the country with no nights off. We hope that our non-conference games will prepare us for this as we play a schedule that is diverse in terms of playing styles and physical makeup of teams. We will have some very good battles against some very well coached and talented programs from all over the country. Many of these teams will no doubt find themselves towards the top of their conferences so it will be a good measure of how NMJC and our conference stack up vs the rest of the country."