Kentucky Wildcats coach John Calipari is finalizing an annual four-team event also involving the North Carolina Tar Heels, UCLA Bruins and Ohio State Buckeyes, according to Andy Katz of ESPN.com. The competition would use a three-year rotation of matchups and locations beginning next season.
Kentucky close to 4-team event with North Carolina, UCLA and Ohio State, per report
The event would join the Champions Classic on a stacked Wildcats schedule.
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The series would be in a style similar to that of the Champions Classic, which features Kentucky, Michigan State, Kansas and Duke. Over the span of three seasons, one team would play all three, one each season. The event would host two games each year on the same night in the same arena. According to Katz, the event would play at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in 2014-15, Indianapolis in 2015-16 and Las Vegas in 2016-17.
The event would ensure a Kentucky-North Carolina matchup at some point in the rotation, a non-conference series that has been in varying levels of flux over the past few years. The two teams played regularly each season until 2012-13, when the series was suspended a year. The two resume the series this season on Dec. 14 in Chapel Hill.
The current Champions Classic continues this season in Chicago, where the Duke Blue Devils will play the Kansas Jayhawks, and Kentucky will play the Michigan State Spartans. Katz says that the four schools have committed to continuing the series with a new three-year rotation starting in 2014, so it appears Kentucky will have quite the non-conference schedule going forward.
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