It was reported earlier this morning that the Southeastern Conference is going to change things up for future scheduling for college basketball. With 14 teams instead of 12, there will be fewer chances to have a home and home series with teams from the old East Division.
I look at a conference rivalry as one that takes place in all the sports that each school plays in. Not just in men’s and women’s basketball. Under the proposed scheduling, it would be Kentucky and Florida while Tennessee would get Vanderbilt.
During Billy Donovan’s coaching tenure, Florida has become a dominant program in college basketball. Nobody disputes this. Certainly not the CBS Sports team when it comes time to pick which SEC contests that they air.
I certainly do not consider the Florida Gators to be a rival in the same sense that I consider the Tennessee Volunteers to be a conference rival. It just does not even sound right—even when Florida won it all two years in a row.
When I think of an in-conference rivalry, I also think of the two teams when they play college football. This is why it puzzles me as to why the SEC would choose to marry Kentucky and Florida while ignoring the long-standing rivalry between Kentucky and Tennessee.
What point is it pairing up Kentucky and Florida when Florida beats up on Kentucky each and every reason? Outside of the 2007 college football season when Andre Woodson started for the Wildcats, when was the last time that Kentucky came real close to beating the Gators? Maybe things will this fall when top quarterback recruit Patrick Towles has a chance at staring for Kentucky. Towles is the best quarterback recruit to attend Kentucky since Tim Couch.
Not even Tim Couch, the 1998 overall first pick for the NFL Draft, was able to beat the Florida Gators during his years at Kentucky. Maybe Towles will have better success at beating the Gators than his predecessors did.
In this era of larger conferences, it’s harder to schedule for basketball more so than college football. With 12 teams, Kentucky would play their 5 divisional opponents at home and on the road. They would play the West division once a season, alternating annually between playing at home and on the road.
Kentucky Wildcat fans have every right to be upset with the possible end of the Kentucky-Tennessee rivalry. This only comes just weeks after the Indiana Hoosiers decided that they didn’t want their fans travelling to Indianapolis every other year.
Kentucky fans care more about beating Tennessee in all sports than Florida. Moreover, the time it takes to travel between Lexington and Knoxville is larger than the travel time between Lexington and Gainesville.
Last November, Kentucky did not earn the trip to a Bowl Game but accomplished the next best thing: Starting a Wide Receiver at the quarterback position in order to beat Tennessee and preventing them from attending a Bowl Game. This would have never happened against Florida, which now holds the longest streak of beating Kentucky in consecutive seasons.