By Dylan Fink | Sports Writer
After 16 years of fans and players alike patiently waiting, college basketball has returned to the video game landscape.
NBA 2K26 has included 16 college basketball programs in its latest update, including Baylor, Texas and Kansas.
The Bears’ high-level success on the men’s and women’s side opened up the opportunity to be included alongside blue-blood programs like Duke, UCLA, Kentucky and North Carolina.
“2K is building the definitive basketball universe, uniting the NBA, WNBA, and soon the collegiate ranks under one banner,” said Zak Armitage, SVP and GM of 2K Sports, in a statement. “Authentically representing the most elite levels of the sport is an ambitious undertaking and one that we will continue to scale over time, beginning with our foundational college experience next year.”
The journey to the addition of college basketball to sports video games is one that has been a long time coming. Sixteen years that is.
The last officially licensed college basketball video game was EA Sports’ NCAA Basketball 10, released in November 2009. The game featured a Baylor roster that, in real life, made the Elite Eight for the first time in the Scott Drew era.
Baylor fans were able to play as such green and gold legends as Quincy Acy, Ekpe Udoh, Tweety Carter and LaceDarius Dunn.
The game featured 325 men’s Division I programs, but did not include women’s teams.
College sports video game production halted in 2014, when a federal court ruled that the usage of player’s name, image and likeness in a video game without financial compensation was a violation of federal antitrust laws. College sports games, including basketball and football, were off the table for over a decade.
In 2022, the beginning of the NIL era allowed college sports games to resume development.
While a full-fledged college basketball game is still at least a year away, the addition of a handful of teams into the newest season of 2K for both the MyTeam and MyCareer modes may be enough to satisfy college basketball fans for the time being.
“We can’t wait to share more details around the new college basketball experience available in early 2027,” Armitage said. “Today we’re excited for players to get a taste of the passion and competition of the collegiate level with a host of themed content in Season 5.”
In late September, a large black truck with the 2K logo on the side could be seen sitting out front of Foster Pavilion.
Inside the truck were Baylor’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, with each player taking turn going through face and body scans as game developers prepared to implement the Bears into the game.
“It’s a great blessing and privilege to be included,” Baylor men’s head coach Scott Drew said. “It means our program’s accomplished a lot to be rewarded with that.”
The addition of college teams does not represent a full-fledged game quite yet. The rosters of the 16 schools included in the game have been included as individual players in MyTeam, a game mode predicated on building a team by opening packs of cards.
Baylor fans can add to their personal NBA–centered rosters any of the players off either of the men’s or women’s teams, but cannot compete against other programs in the Play Now mode.
The inclusion of the Bears alongside 15 other teams demonstrates a step towards the potential development of a standalone college basketball game in the future. For now, the college basketball world will be satisfied with the opportunity to throw an alley-oop dunk to redshirt sophomore guard Cameron Carr from NBA Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson.
“I know our guys spend most of their time studying rather than playing video games,” Drew said. “But it’s nice for them to have the opportunity to see themselves on there.”
