The conference challenges ended Sunday with the Big 12 beating the Big East 6-5 when Oklahoma State won at Seton Hall.
The SEC crushed the ACC earlier in the week in their challenge 14-2 with the two lone wins being significant when Duke beat Auburn and Clemson knocked off Kentucky, both at home, handing the two SEC schools their first loss of the season.
The Big 12 and Big East confirmed their challenge is over and there are no plans to resume in the future. The ACC-SEC will continue. The Big Ten-ACC Challenge ended two seasons ago. The Gavitt Games between the Big Ten and the Big East concluded last season.
And while the challenge series is a guarantee of quality non-conference games and guaranteed programming for the networks that cover the leagues they don’t signal an end to high-level one-game events on home or neutral courts.
Just check out this list below of single non-conference games, thus far, that weren’t in a challenge series, a multiple-team tournament or a traditional, annual rivalry.
And this is all before final exams begin this week around the country:
- Kentucky vs. Gonzaga in Seattle
- Baylor at Gonzaga
- Marquette at Purdue
- Kentucky vs. Duke in Atlanta
- Kansas vs. Michigan State in Atlanta
- Duke vs. Kansas in Las Vegas
- Duke at Arizona
- UConn at Texas
- Illinois vs. Arkansas in Kansas City
- Illinois vs. Alabama in Birmingham
- Alabama at Purdue
- Tennessee at Louisville
- Auburn vs. Houston in Houston
- Ohio State vs. Texas in Las Vegas
- Gonzaga at San Diego State
- North Carolina at Kansas
- Marquette at Maryland
- Marquette vs. Georgia in the Bahamas
- Michigan vs. Wake Forest
- Iowa vs. Washington State in Moline, Ill.
- Iowa vs. Utah State in Kansas City
- Ohio State at Texas A&M
- Arizona at Wisconsin
- Nebraska vs. Saint Mary’s, in Sioux Falls, SD.
- Cal at USC
- Pitt at Ohio State
- Arizona State at Gonzaga
The hope is that this trend will continue going forward. And all indications they will for the foreseeable future — especially with a number of teams shying away from three-game and in some cases two-game tournaments.
This is great for the game going forward and for television coverage in November and December. The thirst and the need to deliver high-level games is a must to continue to generate interest in the game before the heart of conference play.
The concept of playing early-season, December conference games is also a plus. A number of conferences need to do this to get all of their conference games in before…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at NCAA.com > basketball-men d1 articles and video…