Missouri basketball snubbed from SEC – Big 12 Challenge
Just when you think things are going right, Missouri basketball gets blindsided with no invite to next year’s SEC-Big 12 Challenge.
Nobody ever said change would be easy. Once again, that saying speaks volumes of truth when the SEC announced the schedule of opponents for the SEC-Big 12 Challenge on Thursday.
Missouri was not mentioned as a contestant. While I’ve harped on my desire to see the “Border War” between Missouri and Kansas renewed, it doesn’t look like an imposed game between the two teams will occur any sooner. Kansas is scheduled to play Texas A&M.
The SEC stated that the reason behind any team not having a slot to play in the Challenge, is due solely on its previous season’s record, of which Mizzou’s was not hot.
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Which left us thinking, “okay, we’ll see Missouri in the challenge in 2019, then.” Nope. Regardless of the Tigers’ 2017-18 season record, this series is set for two seasons.
Think of it as being locked into a contract. Regardless how any of these teams fare in 2017-18, they will again represent in 2018-19.
"Last season’s results are just one of several factors that are taken into consideration by the conference office and ESPN when selecting the participants in the Challenge"
This year, Tigers’ new head coach Cuonzo Martin assembled a top-10 recruiting class, which may break top-5. However, the statistics on paper do not matter.
Hopefully, in 2019-20, when most of this year’s recruiting class will either be almost finished or long gone, Missouri will receive an invite to take part in the challenge. Maybe the Tigers will be “forced” to play Kansas.
However, that seems unlikely too, as KU Athletic Director Sheahon Zinger wants to distance his Jayhawks as far away from Missouri as possible. And while it may only work with game scheduling, he certainly can’t physically move the state of Kansas.
While I was certainly disappointed that the Tigers were left out of the bidding (regardless of who they might have been scheduled to play), I am quite excited for basketball season to begin, and see Missouri have a successful season.