Kansas and Missouri to reignite basketball rivalry for hurricane charities
Kansas and Missouri will (unofficially) play basketball against each other for the first time since the Tigers left for the SEC.
The teams will play an exhibition game 3 p.m. CT Sunday, Oct. 22 at Sprint Center in Kansas City. All proceeds from the game will go to for hurricane relief efforts. The possibility of the game was first reported by multiple Kansas City media outlets Thursday and officially announced Friday.
Per a Missouri release, the money raised from the game will go to the Houston Harvey Relief Fund, the Rebuild Texas Fund, the Florida Disaster Fund, Juntos y Unidos Por Puerto Rico and the Fund for the U.S. Virgin Islands. The teams will split an 18,000 ticket allotment evenly among its donor bases and any remaining tickets will go onsale to the general public later in the week.
The game, which won’t be televised, had to be approved by the NCAA. Teams are typically prohibited from playing exhibition contests against each other and each team already had two closed-door scrimmages scheduled. Kansas coach Bill Self said he hoped the game would net seven figures for charity.
Self says Mizzou charity game is happening. The hope is to raise more than $1 million.
— Jesse Newell (@jessenewell) October 13, 2017
Kansas and Missouri last played each other in February of 2012 at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas. That was Missouri’s final season in the Big 12 before leaving, along with Texas A&M, for the SEC. The following calendar year was the first the teams hadn’t played since beginning their basketball series in 1907.
Since Missouri’s departure, Self has been adamant about not wanting to play Missouri in the regular season even though his teams have played Colorado and Nebraska — two other former Big 12 members — in the past four seasons.
That stance is understandable from a financial perspective. Men’s basketball is the primary revenue driver at Kansas and scheduling a home-and-home with Missouri or a regular-season neutral site game would likely deny Kansas revenue that it would get for scheduling another opponent at Allen Fieldhouse. But given that Kansas went to Colorado in December of 2013, Self has previously shown that he’s willing to visit former conference rivals on their own court.
Former Missouri chancellor Bowen Loftin said Self is the reason that Missouri and Kansas haven’t played in either football or men’s basketball since Mizzou left the Big 12. In an interview this summer, Loftin said Self quashed discussions about a football game at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium from becoming anything more than conversations.
When asked about Loftin’s remarks, Self simply said that he coached basketball.
The game will also be the first opportunity for Missouri fans to see highly-touted Michael Porter Jr. The Columbia, Missouri, native and No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2017 signed with Mizzou after new coach Cuonzo Martin brought Porter’s father on as an assistant coach.
With Porter, a potential No. 1 pick in the 2018 NBA draft, his brother Jontay and other recruits, Missouri has the No. 4 recruiting class in the country according to Rivals.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
