The date was Jan. 4, 2016.
Oklahoma went into Allen Fieldhouse to battle Kansas. What transpired that night became one of the best regular-season games of all time: KU won 109-106 in triple OT. OU’s Buddy Hield — on his way to winning national player of the year honors; a topic we hit on just last week — scored a record 46 points, the most by a visiting player in that hallowed arena.
Another notable aspect to that legendary game: It’s the most recent instance of No. 1 playing No. 2 with both teams coming from the same conference.
Until this Saturday.
No. 1 Auburn is making the two-hour-and-45-minute drive to meet No. 2 Alabama, this 171st iteration of the Iron Bowl of Basketball being far and away the biggest. (Alabama leads the series 102-68.) In a region defined by fanatical football aspirations and gridiron greatness, there has never been a hardcourt game so grand in the Yellowhammer State. In fact, the basketball teams beat the football teams to playing with these kinds of stakes; the Tigers and Tide have never met in a top-two affair in football.
The two programs have combined to play 5,671 games across 231 seasons dating back to 1905. It’s all led to this, Saturday at 4 p.m. inside Coleman Coliseum.
And it’s so appropriate that we get this game in this season, when the SEC has never been better. It was meant to be.
“To maybe have the best basketball conference possibly ever, at some point you’d hope the two best teams in the poll end up in the SEC and at that time end up playing each other,” Alabama coach Nate Oats told CBS Sports. “Now, on top of it all, they happen to be from the same state and are big rivals. This could be the best game in all of college basketball all year and the best regular season game in I-don’t-know-how-many years. Rivalry, 1 vs. 2, best conference ever.”
It could be a bona fide classic.
And it’s boosted ever so slightly by the fact these two…
..
