Surely, longtime Arizona Wildcats fans remember all those epic Lute Olson-Bobby Knight clashes when Arizona met Indiana on the hardwood.
Or the tense sibling showdowns between Sean and Archie Miller, when the brothers coached the Wildcats and Hoosiers, respectively, through the 2020-21 season.
Plus all the times over the years that the two storied college basketball programs came across each other in early season multi-team events, made-for-TV classics and, of course, the NCAA Tournament.
Well, no. No. And nope.
Never happened. None of it.
The Wildcats and Hoosiers, two of college basketballβs bluer bloods, have never played each other.
Believe it or not.
βThatβs crazy,β said Arizona associate head coach Jack Murphy, a longtime Olson aide who graduated from UA.
It finally happens Saturday, when Arizona and Indiana will play the second half of a doubleheader in Las Vegas, a meeting arranged by an event broker and the Fox network.
UA coach Tommy Lloyd said he, too, was surprised that the two programs will finally be playing, though he also cited some history that probably had a lot to do with it.
Because nonconference matchups are often a product β or not of β relationships between the coaching staffs.
βIβm sure a little bit is probably just the luck of the draw in these NCAA Tournaments,β Lloyd said. βBut the other part of it, Iβm sure has to do with (that) Coach Olson competed against Indiana when he was at Iowa and Iβm sure he probably didnβt want to play against Indiana anymore. So he probably had a lot to say for that, and he was here for a long time.
βAnd then you had Sean and Archie. They probably didnβt want to play against each other. So there just probably wasnβt very many opportunities for this game to happen for 40 years because of the dynamics of the coaching staffs on both programs.β
Thatβs why this one didnβt happen until Lloyd took over for Sean Miller in the spring of 2021. Promoter Brooks Downing matched the two programs together and Fox joined in, putting the first half of the doubleheader (UNLV vs Washington State) on Fox Sports 1, while βbig Foxβ β the networkβs over-the-air channel β will plant the game in homes all over the country.
Fox has also assigned its marquee announcing duo, Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery, to handle the call, for a game that will begin in prime time in the Central and Eastern Time Zones (5:30 p.m. in Arizona).
βThatβs stuff that I donβt think about very often, but itβs where you want to be,β Lloyd said. βYou want to put your program on the map. And in order to put your program on the map, youβve got to get a lot of eyes on your program. Obviously, that generates interest and a little bit of buzz.β
At the same time, Lloyd and Indiana coach Mike Woodson have created some buzz of their own. Both took over their programs in spring of 2021, Lloyd elevating the Wildcats all the way into a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed while Woodson steered the Hoosiers off the bubble and into a No. 12 seed.
While Arizona reached the Sweet 16 before losing to Houston, the Hoosiers beat Wyoming in the First Four before losing 82-53 to Saint Maryβs in the first round. While that may still have fallen short of historical Indiana-type expectations, the Hoosiers had won just 12 games in Archie Millerβs final season of 2020-21.
βI thought our season was very productive considering where we started when I came in as the coach,β Woodson told reporters in May, according to Blue Ribbon Yearbook. βWe had a lot of barriers to knock down. We were trying to put a ballclub together where you had players that didnβt raise their hand to stay on board, and we had to do a lot of damage control to make sure that we kept the right pieces in place.β
Those pieces include a number of Archie Millerβs former players, most notably player of the year candidate Trayce Jackson-Davis, a multiskilled big man who just put together a triple double on Wednesday against Nebraska with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists β all while taking only six shots from the field.
βEach year heβs just gotten better and better, but the biggest thing is his unselfishness and his willingness to pass,β said Indiana guard Trey Galloway, another of the teamβs veterans.
βThatβs the big part, because he knows he can score, and obviously teams are trying to take that away now because he can score at such a high rate.β
Thatβs something Lloyd and the UA staff is fully aware of. Murphy said Jackson-Davisβ unselfishness is impressive, while Lloyd rattled off Jackson-Davisβ long list of attributes.
βHeβs really impressive,β Lloyd said. βHeβs got experience now. Heβs got tons of talent, heβs got great hands and heβs got quick twitch. And heβs left handed, which is a challenge.β
While Lloyd said he didnβt want to βget caught up in a one-on-five version of this deal,β thereβs little doubt that, Jackson-Davis and UAβs interior defense is expected to be the big matchup within the big matchup.
So, tune in. Itβs happening this time, the kind of big-time matchup Woodson said he wanted to get the Hoosiers involved in upon taking over for Archie Miller in spring 2021.
βIf youβve got a good enough team that can compete at that level, why not give it a shot,β Woodson said earlier this week, when asked about scheduling North Carolina, Arizona and Kansas this season. βAs a player and as a coach, Iβve never feared any team or any players, so I think weβre good enough to beat anybody in the country if we commit for 40 minutes on both ends of the floor.
βI think itβs good for basketball. Itβs good for viewership, and itβs definitely good for our fan base. They love that. I donβt see anything wrong with it.β