At the SEC Basketball Media Days in Birmingham, Ala., last year prior to his championship season, Kentucky coach John Calipari tried to explain why the early part of the college basketball season generated so little enthusiasm, not just in his conference but throughout the country.
"You start at the height of football season and then you have a break in December," Cal said. "Then you have bowl season, so the rabid basketball fans pay attention, especially at our place, and we certainly pay attention, but the casual observer starts focusing in sometime around mid-January."
That is certainly one explanation. Another could be the growing irrelevance of the pre-conference schedule and the evaporating rivalry games that have been the lifeblood of early-season college hoops for decades.
This week saw another example as Indiana officials announced the elimination of their 43-year-old rivalry game with Kentucky. According to Indiana athletic director Fred Glass, Kentucky is at fault. The Wildcats, Glass claims, insist on holding the game at a neutral site while the Hoosiers want to keep the series home and home.
"While we understand that such neutral site games could be quite lucrative, we think the series should be continued as it is," Glass said in a written statement. "Playing on campus enables our students to attend these marquee games which we believe is a great component of the overall college experience. Playing in the historic venues that are Assembly Hall and Rupp Arena is also a tremendous experience for our student-athletes."
Historic or not, Assembly Hall seats 16,618; Rupp can hold 23,500. The RCA Dome in Indianapolis can put more than 56,000 people in seats. And the game between the defending national champs and a Hoosier team that is likely to be preseason No. 1 would certainly be a sellout.
This is just one more example of money trumping tradition. It is ironic that it comes in the same week that Calipari was given an 8.5% raise, leaving the Kentucky coach with a contract worth $5.2 million a year in salary, endorsements and bonuses for the next six years.
It also is far from coincidental that Indiana was the team that kept Kentucky from having a perfect regular season. The Wildcats' only non-tournament loss came in Bloomington. They also lost to Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament before running the tables for the championship.
Whatever the reason, the shame will come in the long run. College basketball is accelerating toward pre-February irrelevance, where nobody watches or cares prior to conference games, and only then when it matters for seeding in the NCAA tournament.
Non-conference rivalry games are headed the way of the set shot and peach baskets. Pittsburgh heading to the ACC means they won't play West Virginia any longer. Syracuse has dropped Georgetown. Kansas and Mizzou are a thing of the past. And now Kentucky–Indiana, two of the most storied programs in college basketball history, will wave in passing on their way to March Madness.
Kentucky fans will no doubt cheer their heads off when the Cats beat Radford by 40. And the Hoosier faithful will love their team's triumphant thumping of Chattanooga. But the universe of basketball fans outside of Bloomington and Lexington deserve more.
And schools with traditions as great as Indiana and Kentucky deserve better. Wherever the game is held — be it Rupp Arena, the RCA Dome, or the Terre Haute Junior High gym — college basketball needs this rivalry and others like it.
Sadly, they aren't going to happen as long as the madness and the money continue to focus almost exclusively on March.
