Archie Miller sees opportunity to renew series with Kentucky
Indiana and Kentucky are two of the historically rich programs in all of college basketball and up until a few years ago, the two battled every season in the non-conference slate. However, the two programs have failed to come to an agreement on a new non-conference series since 2011.
Yes, there have been two additional matchups since (2012, 2016), but both were in the NCAA Tournament.
John Calipari wants neutral site games while IU and Archie Miller have kept the idea of a home-and-home series on the table. For Calipari, the way the final regular season matchup between the two programs ended has always rubbed him the wrong way, and that has led to the divide in why the series hasn't been renewed.
But, could there be a renewal on the horizon? Archie Miller addressed that topic on the Aaron Torres Podcast.
“I do,” Miller said. “Number one, it’s a great game, and it’s going to generate great fanfare, it’s going to generate great camaraderie with the schools, and television."
As the conversation has been on the minds of both fanbases for a while, it has also been ongoing in both coaches' offices.
“Conversations fly through both offices at times,” Miller added. “Cal (John Calipari) and myself have never spoken directly about it. We’ve had intermediaries, especially our administrations continue to kind of bump around and talk about it.”
Indiana and Kentucky have played 57 times, with Kentucky winning 32, and despite UK's success as of late, it's a matchup that college basketball fans would love no matter who they root for.
“In general, if you go back, you look at a split RCA Dome with half blue and half red, those are some of the games people grew up watching," Miller said. "I think in the future here if it is pulled off, it will be really good and it will be done for the right reasons, which is for both places to look really good at the end of the day for a good cause, and maybe just in general it’s good for college basketball... Maybe Kentucky and Indiana can be a part of something even bigger than just the two schools."
Though Miller knows it's a matchup that needs to happen for the game of basketball, he also isn't going to try and force something that isn't there. With non-conference schedules set years in advance, this is a topic of discussion that will remain in the background until the right time emerges.
"Obviously this year, it’s not going to happen but as we move into the future and break through some of these non-conference contracts and some of these events, maybe there’s an opportunity for us to be able to do this thing again," Miller added. "I don’t know where it starts and I don’t know where it finishes, but I do know that it will happen when it’s right.”
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