Duke and Arizona just lately introduced a deal to schedule a house and residential collection beginning with the 2023-24 season. The collection breaks a long-standing development by the Blue Devils of (largely) refraining from difficult non-conference video games and units up school hoops with what needs to be top-of-the-line home-and-home collection on the board within the subsequent years. It additionally received us enthusiastic about all of the enjoyable potentialities of different non-conference matchups.
There are many high quality video games performed between convention and non-conference opponents that persistently ship outcomes, in fact: Duke-UNC, Cincinnati-Xavier and Kentucky-Louisville come to thoughts. Nevertheless, there are many different juicy matchups that have not occurred just lately or have not occurred in any respect, and will construct drama inside enjoyable atmospheres.
So what non-conference matchups would we schedule if the powers that be gave our panel the chief energy for in the future to place any home-and-home collection on the board? Gary Parrish, Matt Norlander, David Cobb and I weigh in on that query beneath.
Kentucky vs. Indiana
Kentucky and Indiana met yearly from 1965 to 2012. Having performed a complete of 57 occasions, these two nice basketball manufacturers from bordering states with campuses simply 170 miles aside.
It was one of many nice non-league rivalries.
However the annual collection got here to an finish after the 2011-12 season, after Christian Watford hit one of the memorable buzzers of this century. to carry the Hoosiers previous the Wildcats, as a result of the 2 sides could not agree on find out how to proceed. Kentucky coach John Calipari wished to take the collection off campus and play it at a impartial web site. However then-Indiana coach Tom Crean wished to maintain the collection as is and alternate between the Meeting Corridor and Rupp Area. Neither of them moved. And nothing has modified within the final decade. So now UK and IU do not play yearly, which is unlucky for a wide range of causes, primarily as a result of having one much less recreation a 12 months between outstanding powers is not good for anybody.
Whereas I perceive the enchantment of impartial web site video games, monetarily and in any other case, I’ve at all times believed school basketball is best at residence venues. Gonzaga-Duke in Las Vegas was nice final 12 months, however it could have been 10 occasions cooler inside The Kennel or Cameron Indoor. And that is why I appreciated the announcement earlier this week that Duke first-year coach Jon Scheyer had agreed to take his Blue Devils on the street to Arizona on the expense of one other neutral-site competitors. Now, would not it’s nice if extra blue blood program coaches had been prepared to do the identical extra recurrently and provides season ticket holders extra fascinating non-league matchups to take pleasure in at residence? –Gary Parish
Gonzaga vs. Duke
It is an encouraging signal that Jon Scheyer is prepared to do what Mike Krzyzewski was unwilling to do through the fourth quarter of his profession: take part in home-and-home collection in opposition to energy convention opponents. With that in thoughts, we can’t cease at Arizona vs. Duke. Let’s keep out west and have the Blue Devils play a faculty that has delivered a few actually nice video games briefly collection historical past. Duke and Gonzaga have by no means performed of their residence gyms. It isn’t stunning, however it’s one thing that ought to finish sooner slightly than later. The visible alone is great. Conjure it up in your thoughts now: Gonzaga unis inside Cameron Indoor; Duke gamers preventing uphill within the Kennel.
I do know Mark Few desires it. Duke is on the very quick checklist of massive reveals which have but to guide Gonzaga in a collection, residence and residential or in any other case, and it is a bit of a white whale for him. You’ve got received the newest from Cinderella-to-Powerhouse taking over the preferred/polarizing present in school sports activities. Reverse coasts, two small universities which might be among the many two most successful packages of the final 20 years.
Duke leads 4-1 all-time, with Gonzaga’s solely victory coming in Maui in 2018. All 5 matchups have featured each ranked groups, the newest three (2015, 2018, 2021) being top-10 affairs. There is a lengthy checklist of homes and homes I would wish to see Duke join with Scheyer, however Gonzaga has to prime the checklist, actually whereas Few continues to be working the present and the Bulldogs are Last 4 contenders yearly. . –Matt Norlander
Kansas vs. Missouri
Rivalries are nice and all, however rivalries with their very own names, like those Kansas and Missouri have with the border warfare? These hit a bit of totally different, you understand?
These two packages hate one another. double hate. Utterly hate even. This grew out of a long-running convention rivalry that spanned greater than a century earlier than Missouri’s bounce to the SEC, and it has by no means fairly gone away. Whereas they’ve performed simply as soon as since then, a lopsided win by Kansas in 2021, the animosity on each side stays.
That is precisely the form of non-conference matchups school directors ought to lean on, not keep away from, so I am going to tip my cap right here as a wink to say Thanks for the powers that be who’ve this on the docket as of subsequent season. (Even when I would wish to see it etched into the calendar extra completely.) I am unable to be too grasping, so good to you Missouri and Kansas for making this occur, and let’s be sure we hold it within the common time slot rotation for the foreseeable future. Faculty hoops followers win when this rivalry is performed. Kansas and Missouri followers win. When each side are closely invested, as they clearly are on each side of the KU-Mizzou aisle, it supplies a sports activities product that can not be replicated. –Kyle Boone
Texas Tech vs. Michigan
Michigan star middle Hunter Dickinson launched a since-deleted tweet on April 29 calling Texas Tech coach Mark Adams “a coward.” Dickinson’s public shot was apparently associated to Texas Tech switch Terrence Shannon being unable to enroll at Michigan. The allegation is that Adams didn’t agree to permit Shannon to take summer time courses at Texas Tech after Shannon introduced her intention to switch. That apparently prevented him from being admitted to Michigan, not less than in keeping with Dickinson.
As an alternative, Shannon ended up in Illinois, the place he’ll compete in opposition to Michigan within the 2022-23 season. Let’s make the most of the offseason feud between the Wolverines and the Pink Raiders to present followers a grudge match in Michigan. Then the next season, the Wolverines can come again and perhaps we’ll have an important new rivalry in school basketball. Dickinson and Michigan coach Juwan Howard aren’t afraid to point out their passions, and Michigan followers would most likely give Texas Tech the form of heat welcome Pink Raiders followers gave Chris Beard final season when he returned to Texas Tech with Texas. That was a fully wild scene, and if we will replicate that with a non-conference collection, that may be nice. –David Cobb