We’re probably still about a month away from Indiana releasing its complete 2015-16 basketball schedule.
That usually comes out some time in August. Once in a while it will move into September.
But here’s my question: If you could have one dream opponent that Indiana was able to lock into a home-and-home series with either for a two-year, three-year or four-year deal, what school would you like that to be?
Some will automatically say Kentucky and there’s nothing wrong with that if you’re looking at a dream scenario. But unless there’s a major philosophical change there I just don’t see that happening any time soon.
The reality there, however, is that IU-Kentucky could never get old. To those of us who experienced “The Border War” for countless years, I think the general consensus was that IU-UK was good for both programs and it’s good for college basketball.
Lately though the shift when talking about IU playing a school from the state to the south has been Louisville.
Back in February, Louisville coach Rick Pitino said on his weekly radio show that he and IU coach Tom Crean had been talking about starting up an annual rivalry game. Pitino said the negotiations at that point had IU and Louisville playing one season in Bloomington, one in Louisville and one in Indianapolis at a neutral site on a three-year rotation.
At the time, Pitino had said the schools were talking about having that first game as early as this upcoming season in Indianapolis.
"We are negotiating to play Indiana next year in Lucas Oil Stadium, where we split 35,000 tickets each," Pitino said on his February radio show. "If we can't get Lucas Oil on the date, we'll go to (Bankers Life Fieldhouse) and split 10,500 tickets or whatever. It'll be half going around behind our bench and half at mid-section, going around their bench."
Anyone who remembers the old neutral site matchups with Kentucky at Freedom Hall or in Indy where the court was split right down the middle will embrace that concept. It was actually a really cool idea especially when you had two rabid fan bases basically split right down the middle.
As far as I know nothing new has been discussed on that front, at least not publicly, but again this would be something we probably wouldn’t hear about again until the schedule is set in stone and released in the next month or so.
And so maybe Louisville turns out to be that non-conference annual rivalry that fills the void.
But are there any other programs that you would like to see Indiana play on an annual basis? If something gets done with Louisville, for example, I’m not sure other similar contracts would be set up as well given IU’s other set agreements (ACC/Big Ten Challenge, Crossroads Classic, Gavitt Tipoff Games) but you never know.
Myself, I would like to see Indiana and UCLA set up a series. Especially as long as Steve Alford is the Bruins coach. I just think a rivalry like that one would bring instant intrigue as well as pitting two basketball rich programs against each other.
How about IU-Kansas? There’s already a chance the two schools will meet this year in Maui and next year in Pearl Harbor. But maybe a few years down the road the schools could meet in an annual series.
Even though it wouldn’t be a big series on a national scale, I would still like to see another series along the lines of the Crossroads Classic that would set it in stone that IU would play a select state school or two every year. Perhaps you get on a rotation where every year you play two games against a pool of Indiana State, Ball State, Evansville and IUPUI. Maybe IPFW and Valparaiso get in the mix, too. I’m just a believer that games like that are good for basketball in general. It just promotes that in-state excitement a little bit more.
I’m sure there are other obvious rivalries, too. Are there any other rivalries that you would like to see come about involving Indiana basketball?
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