When the Big 12 Conference has its men’s basketball media day in Kansas City Wednesday, a major announcement will receive considerable attention. Monday, Kansas and Missouri announced that it had agreed to a six-game renewal of the Border Showdown, starting next season.
The cessation of hostilities and the renewal of the rivalry was met with hoorays and hosannas. Old friend and wonderful wordsmith Vahe Gregorian of the Kansas City Star wrote that the Jayhawks and Tigers not playing each season “has been a shame and a waste” and correctly labeled the scheduling cold war “silliness.”
Well, dear readers, shame, waste and silliness is what college sports is all about as we near the third decade of the 21st century.
And as for Your Veteran Scribe, renewing the rivalry for six games – two games in Kansas City (neutral courts) and two games each in Lawrence and Columbia – is a silly shameful waste. You can’t go home again, and this renewal is an attempt to recapture what has been destroyed.
Missouri’s departure from the Big 12 and joining the Southeastern Conference became official on July 1, 2012. The school’s administration made a panicked and ill-conceived decision. True, the Big 12 was on shaky ground but if it had imploded, Missouri was in the best shape of the possible refugees.
Had it been patient, it could have remained in the Big 12 or eventually it would have been invited to the Big Ten (YVS is confident Jim Delany would have preferred Mizzou over Rutgers.) And, yes, SEC revenue checks cash for beaucoup Benjamins. But Mizzou doesn’t fit in the It Just Means More league and its football and basketball teams are, at best, middle of the pack.
Like a jilted lover, Kansas was happy to see Missouri vacate the premises. It didn’t help that the Tigers displayed their (lack of) class in their final Big 12 game – winning the conference tournament in the Sprint Center. Athletic director Mike Alden used a profanity standing near female league staffers, radio play-by-play man Mike Kelly stood and saluted a farewell during the final seconds and the Mizzou fans chanted S-E-C.
Unlike Boy Scouts, the Tigers didn’t leave things better than they found them.
So perhaps that is part of the pettiness that has kept the basketball teams apart. Another factor is that Kansas typically plays a challenging non-conference schedule in addition to the 18 rock fights in Big 12 play. Adding a rivalry game is overdoing it. Plus, KU beating a Missouri team that has been struggling doesn’t add to the resume. The Tigers have far more to gain than the Jayhawks.
Conference realignment and chasing the biggest revenue check has uprooted several rivalries. Oklahoma-Nebraska went from an annual event in the Big Eight to twice every four years until the Huskers left the Big 12 for the Big Ten. The schools will play a home-and-home 2021-2022. The deal was struck to commemorate the memorable 1971 No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown.
That’s like a 50-year high school reunion. The initial thrill of seeing old classmates is soon replaced by comparing hairlines, facelifts and acknowledging those no longer treading this mortal coil.
Missouri followed Texas A&M out of the Big 12 to the SEC. That move ended the annual football rivalry between Texas and A&M. Renewing that rivalry is always a topic bubbling on the back burner. Football nonconference scheduling makes a sudden change like Kansas-Missouri basketball impossible. Both UT and A&M have their future non-league games booked for nearly the next decade.
Plus, if Texas and Texas A&M agreed to a home-and-home contract for, let’s say, 2031-32, does that move anyone’s needle? Playing two games does not “renew the rivalry.” Unless it is played every year, it’s not a rivalry. (The USA Today headline about Oklahoma-Nebraska playing each other said “Oklahoma, Nebraska renewing football rivalry.” Now, that’s fake news.)
No doubt the hype machine and sports talk radio will gin up plenty of excitement for the Jayhawks-Missouri game in 2020. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a JAG – Just Another Game. When Kansas and Missouri played home-and-home conference games, those games mattered.
YVS was fortunate to be in attendance for the final regular-season conference game between KU and Mizzou. The Jayhawks were No. 4, the Tigers No. 3. Kansas overcame a 19-point second-half deficit and won in overtime. The atmosphere and sound in Allen Fieldhouse have yet to be equaled.
That game mattered. Kansas won the Big 12 Conference regular-season title, one of its 14 in a row. Missouri finished second, a game behind.
In a statement issued Monday, Kansas coach Bill Self said the rivalry was something “the player and fans” have missed. Fans, yes. Players, doubtful. Those who will play next season were grade schoolers in 2012. To them, it’s JAG.
Those who think otherwise are fooled by cheap knockoffs, buying Rolexes out of a suitcase on a street corner for $50. YVS will not be bamboozled by this stunt scheduling.
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Wendell Barnhouse has covered sports for four-plus decades. That has included covering 25 Final Fours and 15 college football national championship games.
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