Why wasn’t the Louisville men’s basketball team included in the first SEC/ACC Challenge?
The matchups for the inaugural men’s basketball SEC/ACC Challenge were released Wednesday, and 28 of the 29 teams from those two conferences were included.
The lone omission? The Louisville Cardinals.
Despite being one of the most storied programs in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Cards will not be featured in the first round of games between the two leagues. The reasoning for their exclusion is quite simple: U of L finished 15th and last in the ACC regular-season standings, and since the Southeastern Conference has only 14 teams, somebody had to sit this one out.
An ACC spokesman confirmed to the Herald-Leader on Thursday that U of L was indeed omitted from the challenge due to the fact that they were the lowest seed in last season’s league tournament, noting that the same practice was used for the conference’s previous interleague arrangement, the ACC–Big Ten Challenge, which lasted from 1999 through the 2022-23 season.
Louisville struggled mightily in its first year under new head coach Kenny Payne — a longtime assistant at Kentucky — losing its first nine games and ending up with a 4-28 overall record, the worst season in modern program history. The Cardinals were 2-18 in ACC regular-season play, one game behind Notre Dame, which finished in 14th place in the league to nab the final spot in the challenge.
The roles will be reversed as the SEC/ACC Challenge continues into the future.
When Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC — currently scheduled to happen in time for the 2024-25 basketball season — the SEC will have 16 teams to the ACC’s 15 teams, so one SEC team will be left out of the interleague challenge starting next year.
U of L will obviously be hoping for better results in Payne’s second season on the job.
In addition to the Cards’ league schedule, they will play in the Empire Classic in Madison Square Garden in November, an event that also features defending national champion UConn, Indiana and Texas. Louisville also has a game scheduled at DePaul in December, with the rest of the Cards’ slate to be announced at a later date.
And, of course, the annual Kentucky-Louisville rivalry will continue in the 2023-24 season, with U of L hosting the Wildcats in the Yum Center. Since the two in-state rivals already have an established series, the annual game will not count as part of the new SEC/ACC Challenge.
UK defeated Louisville, 86-63, in Rupp Arena last season.
The Cards are bringing in the nation’s No. 7-ranked recruiting class, according to 247Sports, a group led by five-star prospect Trentyn Flowers and several four-star players. U of L also has a few high-profile transfers, including former UK signee Skyy Clark, who played at Illinois last season.
The SEC/ACC Challenge is replacing the annual Big 12/SEC Challenge that had been a staple of Kentucky’s schedule for the past several seasons. ESPN has been the television partner for both showcases, and all games in the new series will be played on ESPN-affiliated channels.
Kentucky will host Miami on Nov. 28 for its first game in the SEC/ACC Challenge. Other marquee matchups this year include Duke at Arkansas and Tennessee at North Carolina.
2023 ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge
Tuesday, Nov. 28
LSU at Syracuse, 7 p.m.
Missouri at Pitt, 7 p.m.
Mississippi State at Georgia Tech, 7 p.m.
Notre Dame at South Carolina, 7 p.m.
Miami at Kentucky, 7:30 p.m.
NC State at Ole Miss, 9 p.m.
Clemson at Alabama, 9:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 29
Tennessee at North Carolina, 7:15 p.m.
Texas A&M at Virginia, 7:15 p.m.
Florida at Wake Forest, 7:15 p.m.
Duke at Arkansas, 9:15 p.m.
Virginia Tech at Auburn, 9:15 p.m.
Georgia at Florida State, 9:15 p.m.
Boston College at Vanderbilt, 9:15 p.m.
