Coach John Calipari has taken a lot of heat for getting rid of Indiana and North Carolina on the Kentucky basketball schedule.
Well, it looks like North Carolina will only be gone for 1 year, but he has added a couple of other big time matchups for this season and the future.
This from Coach Cal on CoachCal.com:
[QUOTE]
[COLOR=#444444][FONT=Arial]We also want to create experiences for our players that prepare us for our 18-game Southeastern Conference schedule, which includes the addition of two NCAA Tournament teams in Missouri and Texas A&M. With that being said, we want to have a tough nonconference home game and a tough nonconference road game every year.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#444444][FONT=Arial]We are adding North Carolina back to the schedule for the 2013-14 season. The game will be played opposite of our Louisville series (when we play Louisville at home, we’ll play North Carolina on the road, and vice versa). Roy Williams and I both agreed this was a good year to take a break. We both look forward to continuing this series in 2013-14 for two more years and beyond.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#444444][FONT=Arial]
I am currently in conversations with Coach K of Duke for a multi-year, neutral-based series that will be played around the country in the best facilities. The games would take place on the same weekend every year and would be [U]THE GAME[/U] to watch. Obviously we’re playing Duke this season in Atlanta in the second year of the Champions Classic, as well as Maryland in the brand new Barclays Center. We are playing Michigan State in Chicago in 2013-14, and we’re working on finalizing an event that we hope to have in Lucas Oil Stadium that same year.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#444444][FONT=Arial]
In 2013-14, we’re going to pull off another one of those “Only at Kentucky” moments when we do a first-of-its-kind doubleheader with our women’s program at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. Matthew Mitchell’s team will play Baylor, who won this year’s national championship, in the first game, and then we’ll follow it up with our game against Baylor’s men’s team, who we had to get past last year in the Elite Eight to make the Final Four.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#444444][FONT=Arial]
The tickets will be split down the middle for that game, and we hope to break the NCAA attendance record. It’s an opportunity for both of our programs to do something that has never been done before – TO CREATE EXPERIENCES for our players and fans.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#444444][FONT=Arial]Baylor will return the game to Rupp Arena this season on CBS. We will also be going on the road to a Big East opponent this season.
[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[URL=”http://www.coachcal.com/14557/2012/05/scheduling-want-create-experiences-just-games/”]Read Entire Article[/URL]
What does everyone think?
Is this enough to not worry about Indiana on the schedule anymore?
It looks good to me.
