NBA 2K26 is creeping up on us as we approach the 27th anniversary of the popular basketball video game franchise. The series has grown over the years, going from simply a pure NBA experience to eventually adding the Park and now The City (which is returning for 2K26).
We’ve also seen the addition of WNBA modes, with young stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers helping the league grow in popularity. But one thing that’s been badly missing from our sports video game lives is college basketball games.
It’s awesome that we have EA Sports College Football returning to give us our college fix, but for those of us who are crazy hoops heads and love the collegiate experience, it’s been greatly missed. Thankfully, EA Sports is bringing back college basketball games. The bad news is that we have to wait until 2028 at the earliest.
However, over the years, NBA 2K has provided us with a taste of college hoops through its MyCAREER mode, on and off, starting with NBA 2K16. Usually, it’s just eight schools or so with generic arenas (please include authentic arenas if colleges are returning, 2K), but it was something.
There, of course, have been viral reports that 2K had a plan to initially include colleges in NBA 2K as part of MyTEAM and would add more schools over the years. Now, there are supposedly plans that 2K may work on a full-blown college hoops game, but only with 100 schools vs EA’s 350+. In the meantime, we could see the college experience return for NBA 2K26’s MyCAREER, for a few reasons.
NBA 2K16 Anniversary
NBA 2K16 is one of the most beloved games in the series, with many even going as far as calling it the GOAT of 2K’s. It featured cool menus, a great soundtrack, the introduction of MyPARK with affiliations and MyCOURT, as well as featuring a short but layered story in MyCAREER, created by Spike Lee. It’s hard to forget the story of Freq and Vic (or FOF, Friend of Freq).
But an interesting part of that story was that you played four games in high school and then eight games in college. The cool thing was that there were actual schools to choose from for college. You got to choose between Arizona, Arizona State, Georgetown, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan, Texas, UCLA, UConn, and Wisconsin.
After getting through college and playing some games in the NBA, your MyCAREER story was complete, and you could continue your NBA career like normal. Well, I say all of this to say that it’s the 10th anniversary of the highly regarded installment of 2K, and it sounds like Lee is involved with the story again. The MyCAREER story even has its own name again, called “Out of Bounds”.
Of course, this doesn’t mean colleges are returning, but it’s clear 2K is trying to recapture the magic that 2K16 had by going this route with MyCAREER. Plus, a big thing of note is that part of the Out of Bounds story is that you need to impress scouts to improve your draft stock, and what better way to do that than by playing in college? Now, they could also just have you playing for some made-up college team called the City University Fighting Pigeons or something, too.
World Of 2K
Now, this is more of a bigger picture thing and essentially goes back to the report we mentioned by Matt Brown of Xtra Points. 2K’s plan was to include a full college experience within NBA 2K itself, in MyTEAM, to be exact. No doubt that that seems a bit surprising, but NBA 2K has become such a juggernaut that even in a down year, the game still sells millions of copies, especially with no competition. And so I simply think that 2K’s vision was to feed the machine that is NBA 2K, especially MyTEAM, which is such a huge money maker for them.
And 2K gave us a little hint in what they want NBA 2K to become. They made a trailer and promotional poster called “World of 2K” a few months back, highlighting the various modes players can check out. This promotion mentions MyCAREER, The City, The W, MyTEAM, etc. It’s possible that they wanted to throw College Basketball Mode or something like that into that promotion. And the report from Brown essentially confirms what “World of 2K” truly meant but then again, it could’ve just been simply an ad, unrelated to the future of NBA 2K and I’m reaching in like a bad defensive player.
But if colleges are back again for NBA 2K26, maybe it’s a small glimpse into what the future holds. Yes, colleges have been in several NBA 2Ks but considering what we know now about 2K’s vision, this kind of changes how we look at things. And if we hear anything about some kind of small college mode for NBA 2K26, even if it’s just Play Now, then all bets are off. The plan would be taking shape at that point.
Collegiate Licensing Company
In college sports, you have, of course the entity known as the NCAA, but there’s also the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC). The CLC is the main reason why we’ve gotten real schools for NBA 2K’s MyCAREER and Madden’s career mode in the past, and the main reason why we have EA College Football without the NCAA license.
This allows game companies to partner up with each school individually for licensing in their games to use team uniforms, logos, etc. Yes, there’s the NCAA, but at the end of the day, colleges are their own brands and can agree to different things. So, I can see 2K running it back with a few schools for MyCAREER. What they do beyond that will be very interesting, especially with the 100-team proposal for their own college game.
Having only 100 out of over 350 schools kind of sucks, but looking on the bright side, maybe that means we’ll see 2K’s college basketball game release sooner, giving us some kind of legit college hoops gaming fix while we wait for EA’s complete offering with all teams. As they say, only time will tell. But it’s just so great having discussions about college basketball games legitemately returning. It’s already a thrill that college football is back, so seeing hoops is really exciting. Baseball next, anyone?
