Trash...

Should point out that this isn't a criticism of our staff or administration or anything, you've gotta play who they give you.

At least it's not Iowa State.

Alabama at Baylor
Arkansas at Texas Tech
Florida at TCU
Texas at Georgia
Kansas at Kentucky
Iowa State at Ole Miss
South Carolina at Oklahoma State
West Virginia at Tennessee
Kansas State at Texas A&M
Vanderbilt at Oklahoma

it's like they tried to find the matchup with the least significance possible for us. A small step up from Iowa St, but still a huge gap between those two teams and the old Big12 South/TCU group.

2013-14 OU (Houston)
2014-15 DNP
2015-16 Iowa St (Reed)
2016-17 WVU (away)
2017-18 Kansas (away)
2018-19 Kansas St. (Reed)

In that span, we've had a home-and-home with Baylor, neutral site games vs Texas and OSU as part of OOC tournaments, and a Sweet 16 matchup vs OU (same tournament where the committee tried to set us up vs Texas). Pretty lame to see how this opportunity for meaningful matchups is being bungled by the decision makers, but whatever I guess.

If I were putting these matchups together, if this were the first year:

Kansas - Kentucky
Vanderbilt - Baylor
Tennessee - West Virginia
A&M - Tech
Arky - Oklahoma
Lsu - Oklahoma State
South Carolina - KState
Florida - Texas
Missouri - Iowa State
Mississippi State - Tcu

I don't know how they calculate who is and isn't playing, but:

- Not having us playing someone from Texas is lame
- How have they not put South Carolina against K-State yet?
- Not having Missouri in it is lame

Yea, it just makes me question the whole concept behind the challenge in the first place. I would think these challenges are the result of trying to get fans excited about more regular season games, and/or generate more TV exposure (money) for schools/conferences and the sport of college basketball in general.

To me you would want regional matchups, like Missouri playing any school from the old "Big 12 North", or A&M playing any school from Texas. Or other fun matchups like Drew vs Drew, or Dixon vs Howland, or Frank Martin vs Kstate.

The timing is the other part. These games need to be sandwiched in before Christmas (or conference). The Big10/ACC gets it mostly right, but it doesn't seem like the SEC/Big12 is even trying at this point.

I actually like the timing, it puts some focus on SEC basketball that we otherwise don't get. If it were sometime in the fall/winter break nobody would care in this part of the world except for at a handful of schools.

That's one thing I really do like.

_lefraud_ said:

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Yea, it just makes me question the whole concept behind the challenge in the first place. I would think these challenges are the result of trying to get fans excited about more regular season games, and/or generate more TV exposure (money) for schools/conferences and the sport of college basketball in general.

To me you would want regional matchups, like Missouri playing any school from the old "Big 12 North", or A&M playing any school from Texas. Or other fun matchups like Drew vs Drew, or Dixon vs Howland, or Frank Martin vs Kstate.

The timing is the other part. These games need to be sandwiched in before Christmas (or conference). The Big10/ACC gets it mostly right, but it doesn't seem like the SEC/Big12 is even trying at this point.

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Disagree with your opinion about the timing. I think the timing was a smart move trying to make it a more notable 'event', with all the games played on the same day and as a break in the middle of conference play. And while school is in session.

bobinator said:

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I don't know how they calculate who is and isn't playing, but:

- Not having us playing someone from Texas is lame
- How have they not put South Carolina against K-State yet?
- Not having Missouri in it is lame

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Gotta be a ton of politicing going on in the background.

No way tech/tcu/baylor wouldn't play ags.

I get usce not wanting to play ksu

why isnt mizzou playing ksu? hell if jontay comes back that could even be interesting vs ku.

I like the idea of going 1 vs. 1, 2 vs 2, and on down to 10 based on the previous season's final conference standings.

If we want to play Texas, Baylor, Tech, or TCU and they want to play us, we are free to sign a home and home with them.

KState finished 4th in big 12 and has most of their team back. If anyone should be upset about the matchup it's probsbly KState hoping they would draw a better team to play.

wacarnolds said:

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but still a huge gap between those two teams and the old Big12 South/TCU group.

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They finished higher in the conference than all the old big 12 south teams except tech. They also finish higher than tcu.

Pretty sure he just means from a "do we care about this opponent" perspective, not a "how good are they" perspective.

bobinator said:

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Pretty sure he just means from a "do we care about this opponent" perspective, not a "how good are they" perspective.

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But isn't that kind of the point of these? To play somebody different and somebody you might not have history with.

MarcAg said:

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bobinator said:

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Pretty sure he just means from a "do we care about this opponent" perspective, not a "how good are they" perspective.

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But isn't that kind of the point of these? To play somebody different and somebody you might not have history with.

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thats not the point. the point is to deliver a compelling all day TV event for the ESPN family of networks.

i am biased as an aggie hoops fan but i think k-state is probably the 9th or 10th most compelling matchup we could get. plus, didnt we play a home-home with them recently (return game was in KC maybe)?

Problem is we just played Kansas State in a home-and-home three years ago. Other than Iowa State, who we played even more recently at home, they're the most boring Big 12 opponent possible for us right?

This is all even ignoring that Kansas State is probably going to be WAY better than us next year. They're probably going to be a preseason top 15-20 team.

It's still a good home opponent, there's no question about that, but it's not as much fun as playing one of the Texas teams or even OU or OSU that we have more history with that might help get our fan base into the game.

I'm kinda surprised they left Pearl out again this year as well as MSU. Both should have pretty good teams next season.

Mikesyracuse1

At least we have a chance of winning.

With Mississippi State not playing this year, the Bulldogs have missed 5 of the 6 challenge games. I have no idea how they decide who is in and who is out.

It's not like Kansas State wasn't an Elite 8 team last year -- it looks like our game and Kentucky/Kansas are the only two games including 2 teams that advanced at least to the Sweet 16 last year.

Con Spirito said:

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With Mississippi State not playing this year, the Bulldogs have missed 5 of the 6 challenge games. I have no idea how they decide who is in and who is out.

It's not like Kansas State wasn't an Elite 8 team last year -- it looks like our game and Kentucky/Kansas are the only two games including 2 teams that advanced at least to the Sweet 16 last year.

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I was very surprised that Auburn got left out again after winning the SEC so I went and found an Auburn article to see if they were pissed about it.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.oanow.com/sports/college/auburn/basketball/men/auburn-left-out-of-sec-big-challenge-for-nd-straight/article_977dad22-5f68-11e8-af3f-47e388b0c875.amp.html

The challenge is on a 2 year rotation now (no freaking clue why, that's pretty stupid), so the 4 teams that didn't participate last year, don't get to participate this year..

Presumably it has always been a 2 yr rotation (we missed the first 2 before it was all on a single saturday) but yeah that doesn't really make sense considering there havent been many repeat machups besides Kansas kentucky.
Don't the 4 SEC teams who are left out play each other that day?

I know this year was different, but it seems like Kansas always plays Kentucky in the series. Of course after we laid an egg this year in Lawrence, I can see why they want UK vs KU.

Love the January date. Except for Kentucky, no one in the SEC cares about hoops until after Christmas break.

We were actually in the first one but not the second, our game against Oklahoma at the Toyota Center was one of the games.

The two year rotation thing must have started last year, although neither Missouri nor Mississippi State has participated in the last four years.

I believe you. I was thinking that ou had played a couple of sec teams and the other game counted. Maybe that is what happened the next year. Didnt we play k-state in a reg season game that wasn't part of the challenge (since it was spread over like 8 days in December it was hard to know which ones were actually part of the challenge).

Yeah, in 2015 we didn't participate in the challenge but we played Kansas State in Kansas City. We also played at Baylor that year.

DukeMu said:

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At least we have a chance of winning.

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Kansas St is ranked #12 in CBS sports early top 25 they released today. Kansas only big 12 ranked higher than them.