Report: SEC-Big 12 and ACC-Big Ten challenges likely to end with SEC-ACC challenge in the works
College basketball scheduling among the power five conferences is about to get shaken up. For the last decade, the Big Ten-ACC challenge and the Big 12-SEC challenge were staples of non-conference play for the four leagues. Typically, the best teams in the respective conferences would be matched up against one another — creating games like Kentucky vs. Kansas or Duke vs. Michigan on a regular basis.
Now, there’s word that those challenges are coming to and end right as new ones are created. According to college basketball insider Andy Katz, the Big Ten-ACC challenge and the Big 12-SEC challenge will both expire this season, while a new ACC-SEC challenge is in the works and is apparently slated to start next season, the 2023-24 year.
Here was the initial report from Katz on Twitter:
“Breaking: ESPN will announce today the @B1GMBBall–@accmbb Challenge will end this week after 23 years and the @Big12Conference–@SEC Challenge will conclude in January after a 10-year run. A new ACC-SEC Challenge for men and women will start the week after Thanksgiving 2023.”
He also added a second tweet:
“Shout out to ESPN Programming and @ESPNEvents team for decades of hard work on these challenges. New media rights agreements made it difficult to continue current structure. Opens door for a new conference challenge with @B1GMBBall @Big12Conference to occur if mutual interest.”
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Then came the confirmation from the SEC that yes, in fact, the SEC-ACC challenge will happen.
So no more SEC vs. Big 12 or ACC vs. Big Ten. Instead, going forward, it’ll be SEC vs. ACC the week after Thanksgiving, which would keep all those schools in play for the annual holiday tournaments such as Maui, Battle 4 Atlantis and all those fun little November excursions.
Also, Katz points to the obvious possibility of the Big Ten and Big 12 hooking up for a challenge of their own going forward. Fun new wrinkles coming up in college hoops scheduling for years to come. Paves the way for another round of great out-of-conference matchups early in the year.