Northwestern's 2016-17 conference opponents set

Early on Monday morning, the Big Ten announced the full slate of conference games for the 2016-17 season. Northwestern relayed that information through their official Twitter feed:

The @bigten has announced Northwestern's home and away league games for 2016-17. Dates and game times TBA. #B1GCats pic.twitter.com/Nana1xOPpo

— NU Men's Basketball (@NUMensBball) June 20, 2016

For ease of viewing, here's how the schedule shakes out.

Teams Northwestern only plays at home:

Iowa
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota

Teams Northwestern only plays on the road:

Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
Wisconsin

Teams Northwestern plays twice:

Illinois
Indiana
Nebraska
Purdue
Rutgers

All in all, Northwestern can't be too upset with the way the schedule shakes out. They avoid playing either Michigan school twice and they only have to do battle with Wisconsin once. Those three teams might well top the standings at the end of the year. They play their in state rival twice (thank you, Big Ten), Big Ten bottom dwellers Rutgers twice, and Purdue twice, who they gave a decent run in Mackey Arena this past season. One more hot take, playing Penn State and Minnesota just once each might be a good thing too because I have both of them pegged as solid NIT teams next season.

It's a balanced schedule that gives Northwestern a big handful of easy games and perhaps a slightly smaller handful of gettable, resume building games. Plus Welsh-Ryan will be rocking for the Illinois game, so get ready.