Both games were among the best in UM History. One win, one loss!!
Man that game was tough. No idea how Harrison made that shot. Stauskas went off that game.
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It the first half. Was completely shut down in the second.
IMO we would have ran away with that game had mcgary been healthy. Horford was a disaster, especially on the glass.
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Weâll find out in a month, but just for fun, my best guess on London date:
Saturday Dec. 19th or Saturday, Dec. 26th
Kentucky has a game scheduled vs. Georgia Tech the day after Thanksgiving and the week after that (first full week of December) is the ACC/B10 Challenge.
Since B10 has started doing doing two December conference games, they have started the weekend after the ACC/B10 Challenge and can go for a week and half.
The UM academic calendar ends on Dec. 21st and UM b-ball schedule has traditionally had only one game (not two) around finals time.
I also presume this will be a Saturday game based on time difference and doubting networks would want to go up against Sunday NFL.
If itâs ESPN, they probably wonât want to do it late December when bowls start happening, but if itâs Fox they may since they donât have a lot of the lower/mid tier bowls that happen around Christmas.
Also, poking around the web this seems to have been on Kentuckyâs radar for quite some time: https://www.aseaofblue.com/2019/5/29/18644679/kentucky-basketball-london-schedule-2020-uk-wildcats
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So our schedule looks like
Oregon - Who knows? Probably early November? (Away)
Empire Game 1 - Nov 19 (Neutral)
Empire Game 2 - Nov 20 (Neutral)
ACC - B10 challenge - Late November (Home)
Big Ten Weekend Game 1 - Early December (Home)
Big Ten Weekend Game 2 - Early December (Away)
Kentucky - Mid-late December (Neutral)
6 Buy games sprinkled in
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12th or 19th probably makes the most sense but the Christmas date could avoid finals and provide some rest.
I agree with @ReegsShannon that the Oregon game might get moved into November somewhere.
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I originally had the 12th down too but I wasnât sure how the B10 schedule would work and how much leeway UM would have. If thatâs when the London game is, B10 should give us Northwestern and Rutgers as our December games!
Also woulda won that game were it not for Morgan picking up a cheap foul in the last minute of the first half. IIRC Beilein brought him back in with 90 seconds to go, and I just felt the foul coming.
Iâd be interested in the economicsâseems gimmicky to me. I know about the popularity of hoop in central Europe; is it popular in England?
Also want to see how it affects the schedule. Do they get to the next game rested?
Juwan out here playing 4D chessâŚwill also ensure that Todd does in fact play âoverseasâ next year.
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Economics from what partyâs perspective?
As far as Michiganâs schedule, Iâd guess that it is probably book-ended by a buy game or two. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense as something after final exams and before Big Ten play.
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In 2002, I was living in London with my family. We all went to a pre-season Duke game against a local pro team. Smaller arena than O2, but the house was full.
Lots of American ex-pats would go and I would think each team would get 1-3K of their local fans to travel. I plan on being there, but I may have a conflict.
Great idea all around.
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Who profits? Do they fill the arena with paying customers? Does showing a game in London back in the States insure enough advertising to make it all worthwhile? Do promoters in the UK see it as something that builds the following there and therefore (is) worth it? Iâve only spent four or five months in London, traveled around the UK a bit, but I never saw evidence of a big following. . . doesnât mean there isnât one.
Hall of Fame is organizing it, they also organize a lot of other preseason tournaments. Similar to preseason MTEs, I would expect that they are paying Michigan/UK to participate.
I would think that they are able to promote it pretty well but the TV contracts for these games provide a pretty strong baseline.
The London event, which was organized as a fund-raiser for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, also includes a game between the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Marist. U.M.B.C. has two players, R.J. Eytle-Rock and Daniel Akin, who are originally from London, and the team built significant name recognition in 2018 by becoming the first No. 16 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament to defeat a No. 1 when it upended Virginia (which rebounded with a national title the next season).
Over the past two seasons, the Hall of Fame has also organized an early tournament in Northern Ireland featuring several mid-major programs, none with the cachet of teams like Michigan and Kentucky.
I donât really see it as a huge financial thing all things considered. It is a lot easier to transport a basketball team than a football team, which is something else that has been discussed.
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Thanks much.
Here are the dates for the home-and-home
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Michigan getting a home and home with Kentucky really has to piss off the Indiana fans.
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Good for Franz to get a chance to play in Europe next year. Even better for Josh Christopher to drop 35 5 and 5 on his former âdream schoolâ and make Calipari regret giving away those scholly spots. Go Blue.
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Michiganâs has a pretty damn good run of home and homes since Beilein started. Kentucky gets added to Oregon, Arizona, UCLA, Kansas, UConn, and Texas with some minor ones like South Carolina, SMU, Iowa State, Utah and Arkansas also sprinkled in.
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