College basketball fans may struggle to find a 2025-26 nonconference slate as daunting, on paper, as the Merrimack College men’s basketball team’s.
The Warriors will travel nearly 7,000 miles, playing road games against the defending national champion Florida Gators and 2025 Final Four participant Auburn Tigers. In the first month of the season, they will play just one game at Lawler Arena.
But such a grueling schedule is to be expected from Joe Gallo ’04, who is entering his 10th season as the Warriors’ head coach.
“Because of the lack of home games, this is a very unique nonconference year for us,” he said. “I don’t think any other team in the country has as many road games as we do. However, over the years, people have come to realize that securing five non-conference wins is considered a success. It’s all about setting this team up for when we get to conference play.”
The Warriors open the season on Monday, Nov. 3, against South Dakota State University as part of the Field of 68 Marathon, which features six men’s basketball games at two different locations over the course of one day. Merrimack then takes on No. 20 Auburn on Nov. 6 and No. 3 Florida on Nov. 21.
Those two Southeast Conference foes both secured top seeds in the 2025 NCAA March Madness tournament and faced each other in the semifinals, with Florida moving on and ultimately winning the national championship.
“You need to recruit high character guys who know what it is,” Gallo said of Merrimack’s tough nonconference schedule. “The toughest part of my job is keeping the group together through November and December.”
This year’s team features just five returning players from the 2024-25 season, who are joined by five freshmen and five transfer students.
And while Warriors fans can expect to again see Merrimack’s trademark zone defensive stifle opponents, this year’s squad has the potential to feature a more fast-paced, high-tempo offense with as many as 10 players getting regular playing time.
“We have a lot more athletes than we have had in the past,” Gallo said.
As changes to college sports, specifically the transfer portal, lead to greater roster turnover year after year, Gallo said he and his staff have ways to ensure the Warriors’ basketball culture remains consistent.
One of those ways is making sure that early in the recruiting process, potential players either attend a practice or watch film of a practice. Gallo has one video in particular that shows clips of practices from July to November to February to March, and recruits notice quickly that the energy level stays high throughout the entire season.
“We are always talking to our guys about Day 1 energy when everyone is excited because you finally get to play and playing time hasn’t been allotted and the sneakers are new and can we still have that same energy on Day 100,” Gallo explained.
Having reached a decade of head coaching at his alma mater, Gallo said a notable change he has noticed about himself is a calmer approach to the game.
“If you can believe it,” he said with a chuckle. “At our first scrimmage this year, I noticed my blood pressure wasn’t as high as it would get in similar situations years ago. Each year, the game gets slower and you really focus on the things that really matter. But I told my guys not to worry because the blood pressure can go up when it needs to.”
