Michigan, Kentucky To Play In London In 2020, Home-And-Home In 2021, 2022
According to a tweet by CBS college basketball insider Jon Rothstein, the Michigan Wolverines' basketball program has agreed to a deal where it will face Kentucky in London in December of 2020, followed by a home-and-home series between the two schools.
The first game of the home-and-home will occur in Ann Arbor in December of 2021, followed by a showdown at Rupp Arena in Lexington in December of 2022.
The affair with the Wildcats will be one of several challenging non-conference games for the Maize and Blue next season, who are also slated to face Oregon in Eugene and two of Baylor, NC State and Villanova in the Empire Classic in New York.
Michigan is no stranger to challenging home-and-home series, having scheduled such matchups with Power Conference schools in recent years including Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa State, Texas and UCLA.
The Wolverines' last matchup with Kentucky occurred in the 2014 Elite Eight, when guard Aaron Harrison nailed a game-winning three-pointer with just 2.3 seconds remaining to give the Wildcats a 75-72 victory and send them to the Final Four.
UK leads the all-time series, 5-2, with one of the two victories occurring in the 1993 Final Four in New Orleans, when current head coach Juwan Howard and the Wolverines took down the Wildcats, 81-78.
"When the idea of playing Kentucky came up, we knew it would be an exciting opportunity, not only for ourselves, but for our fans as well," Howard said today.
"What a unique three-game series. First, we get to showcase collegiate basketball overseas in London before playing that traditional home-and-home series in front of two of the nation's best basketball environments. We cannot wait."
The trip to Europe will mark Michigan's fifth time playing outside the U.S., with the four previous occurrences being the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas this year and in 2015, the Puerto Rico Holiday Classic in 1997-98, the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands in 2002-03 and the Puerto Rico Tip-Off in 2013-14.
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