It’s one in all school basketball’s lasting photographs from the previous 15 years, Indiana’s Christian Watford catching a kick out from Verdell Jones with a smidge greater than a 2nd left at the clock and letting it fly.
IU was once down two issues. Kentucky was once the opponent.
It was once Dec. 10, 2011.
When the 3-point shot left Watford’s arms, Dan Shulman, ESPN’s superb play-by-play guy, met the instant completely and described what we have been all staring at in the most straightforward and maximum correct method.
“Watford for the win!” Shulman mentioned in a raised voice.
Then the buzzer sounded. Then the ball swished.
“YES!” Shulman added. “YES!”
Final rating: Indiana 73, No. 1 Kentucky 72.
It represented the primary lack of the season for the top-ranked Wildcats — and one of the crucial handiest two defeats they’d undergo whilst on their option to a 38-win marketing campaign that produced a nationwide championship. Unsurprisingly, Indiana lovers stormed the courtroom that Saturday afternoon. It was once an out of this world scene that still marked the top — even if we did not know it on the time — of one in all school basketball’s absolute best nonconference series that had in the past been performed annually since 1969.
Which is why Tuesday’s news was once notable.
CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein broke the tale that Kentucky and Indiana have agreed to begin playing each and every different again once a year starting within the 2025-26 season. It’s a four-year series that can release inside of Kentucky’s Rupp Arena. The following yr, the Wildcats and Hoosiers will play at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. After that, it’s again to Rupp Arena. And then, within the 2028-29 season, Kentucky will go back to Assembly Hall for the primary time since Watford buried that buzzer-beater just about 12 years in the past.
Is it very best? No.
Perfection can be a series with all video games performed inside of both Rupp Arena or Assembly Hall. True home-road environments are endlessly my desire. But Kentucky trainer John Calipari has a actual wish to really feel like he wins each and every negotiation he is in, together with negotiations tied to non-league series. So he probably drew a line at two video games inside of Rupp Arena, one recreation inside of Assembly Hall, and one recreation on a impartial courtroom, and Indiana trainer Mike Woodson agreed to the proposal as a result of, smartly, I suppose he simply determined that Indiana playing Kentucky on Calipari’s phrases is healthier than Indiana now not playing Kentucky in any respect.
I assume I agree.
Kentucky and Indiana are two of faculty basketball’s greatest manufacturers, and large manufacturers playing once a year is at all times a just right factor, particularly in a recreation the place too many non-league video games are general mismatches between groups that are supposed to by no means be at the courtroom in combination. So I’ll take Indiana-Kentucky any place — or Duke-Arizona or North Carolina-Kansas, simply to call a couple of alternative big-brand vs. big-brand series scheduled for the longer term — over any of the so-called purchase video games that fill November and December.
Truth be informed, I by no means agreed with Calipari refusing to proceed the home-and-home series with Indiana as in the past built following the 2011 recreation — even supposing I at all times identified it as precisely the kind of factor Calipari would do after having the court-stormed on him 4 months ahead of successful a nationwide championship. When Calipari made his choice, he was once the largest deal within the recreation and robust sufficient to tug off no matter he sought after with out anyone wondering him in any type of method that mattered even when he mentioned complicated such things as this to longtime school basketball reporter Andy Katz: “We were willing to play them in the state of Indiana [specifically in Indianapolis], and they said no to that. That means they don’t want to play us.”
With all due admire, no, that by no means supposed Indiana did not need to play Kentucky. It simply supposed Indiana did not need to play Kentucky 49 miles clear of Bloomington and regulate a series that were in position for greater than 4 a long time whilst taking a top rate contest off campus and robbing its scholars of one of the crucial greatest domestic video games at the time table each and every different yr.
Simple as that.
But …Â no matter.
As they are saying, what is executed is finished. Nobody has the ability to switch the previous. Which is why, by the point we get Kentucky-Indiana again within the common season, it could have been 14 years since Watford buried that buzzer-beater, 14 years since we closing watched the Wildcats and Hoosiers play out of doors of the NCAA Tournament. That’s unlucky. But the great news is this competition between colleges from bordering states that experience mixed to win 13 NCAA Tournaments will renew in two years.
It’s now not a true home-and-home series.
It’s now not very best.
But it’s unquestionably higher than Kentucky and Indiana now not playing in any respect.