Article By: Kyle Craven
Concept By: Kyle Craven
Artwork By: Kyle Craven
For YEARS I’ve seen people on Twitter going back and forth on this idea — and we’re certainly guilty of helping facilitate the conversation. It’s admittedly the most unrealistic, naive idea to ever exist in college basketball but one that we simply cannot help but fantasize about nonetheless. This concept probably won’t appeal to Kentucky or Louisville fans. It mostly likely won’t appeal to a ton of Murray State or Western Kentucky fans (at first). But I ask of you all… open your minds for a moment. For just a moment, let’s imagine together — An ALL-KENTUCKY DIVISION I MIDSEASON BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT, THE BLUEGRASS CLASSIC.
This tournament is completely out of the question for dozens of reasons, probably most of which include the fact that some teams are in the same conference. It requires UK and Louisville to either play one more game against each per season, OR risk sacrificing their yearly matchup altogether. I think for this to happen with all 8 teams, you’d have to seriously bend the rules of reality.
We’re going to attempt to do that today, but I understand that many of you won’t be able to make this journey with us, as your logic and intuition just will not allow you to see beyond the MANY logistical, financial and political factors that may stop a thing like this from taking place. For those who think this way, I say go ahead and wait 3 more weeks for when we release the ‘realistic’ version of this tournament.
However, if you’re like me — you’re a dreamer. You are someone who is not only able to shut off the logical side of your brain but you also relish the opportunity to do so in an effort to escape from reality. I ask you to dare to dream with me. In order to do this, I am asking you to step outside of the realm of possibility — into an alternate reality where something like this could ACTUALLY happen. Let us journey into a parallel universe, a basketball utopia, a place where dreams come true.
««« LET’S ENTER THE VORTEX AND HEAD TO OUR ALTERNATE REALITY»»
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Presenting: The 1st ANNUAL Bluegrass Classic
Okay folks I think it’s time for us to build this thing out. While this is a dreamer’s scenario, for us to feasibly even dream of this happening we have to at least make it somewhat realistic. There are certain stipulations that would have to be met to even consider having this with all 8 teams. Here’s how I think we get it done.
UK and Louisville: Automatic 1 & 2 Seeds
The easiest way to organize this ‘tournament’ WITH Kentucky and Louisville’s participation is by creating a situation where there are two sides of the bracket and UK and Louisville are on opposite sides. We will also ensure that they get to host their side of the tournament because RUPP and YUM are the best and biggest basketball venues in the state. Having UK and Louisville involved in this tournament WILL ensure that 6 other teams want to join, so we really are going to need to appease to their best interests, which will be creating a situation that is most likely to generate a final involving both teams.
Two ASUN Teams — How Can We Get Around This?
Again, as this is a “dream scenario”, we have to include both Bellarmine and Eastern Kentucky (ironically both teams are in the same conference and also have a strikingly similar color scheme — weird, I just noticed that) and we have to sort out the fact that they are in the same conference and already play 2 games per season. The first thing we can do is put a bylaw into the tournament’s constitution that any teams in the same conference are automatically placed on opposite sides of the bracket. Phrasing it this way protects us in the event that there are future conference shifts down the road. The likelihood EKU and Bellarmine win their way to the end is nearly 0, but given that it’s still greater than 0, we need to plan for how to count that game. The way I see it, us ‘dreamers’ have two options:
Consider it a “non conference game”
Work with the conference to allow their Bluegrass Classic matchup to count as one of their conference games.
Option 2 seems way too complicated to work even in a dream scenario so I am going to use my absolute power as Fantasy Commissioner godKing of the BGC and institute option 1 as our umbrella policy. Here’s the rule: “In the event that two conference teams match up in this tournament, the result of this ‘neutral site’ matchup will be considered a non-conference game.” If you think that’s weird, well yeah of course it is but it would not be the first time that two conference teams decided to meet up for a non-conference game during their season1.
How Do We Place and Seed Everyone Else?
Now that we’ve decided that each side of the tournament will feature either Kentucky or Louisville as the 1 seed and host site of their regional tournament, the team with the higher NET rating at the end of the previous year between those two teams will be the host site of the tournament championship. Given that Kentucky finished the 2022-23 season with a NET rating of 26 and Louisville had «checks notes» 4 wins.. Let’s give the overall top seed to Kentucky.
That settles the top two seeds, but what about the rest? I think last year’s NET was a fair way to determine UK and Louisville’s seeding, so why not use that method for everyone else. Let’s keep in mind though that we have to keep Bellarmine and EKU on separate sides of the bracket, so we may need toggle things along the way. Let’s play this out and see how it goes.
REMAINING TEAMS’ NET2 RANKINGS / Seeding
KENTUCKY
LOUISVILLE
3. EKU: 146 — The top ranked team of those that remain, according to the 2023 NET Rankings is Eastern Kentucky at 146. (I am calling BS here… NKU beat EKU head to head AND made the NCAA Tournament while EKU racked up a couple of extra wins in the lowly CBI, but the numbers are the numbers so we' must stick to them). Eastern Kentucky gets the 3 seed and lands themselves in Louisville for their opening game.
4. NKU: 151, 5. WKU: 169 — For their part, Northern Kentucky (151) edged out Western Kentucky (169) so those two get the 4 and 5 seeds and will play their game in RUPP arena, opposite of Kentucky.
6. MURRAY: 214, 7. MOREHEAD: 219 — Murray State (214) and Morehead (219) will round out the teams heading to Louisville, as the former will play Eastern Kentucky and the latter will take on the host team in the opening round.
8. BELLARMINE: 258 — That leaves us with one final team in the competition: Bellarmine (258), who will face Kentucky in Rupp in the 1st round. Lucky for us, the math worked out such that Bellarmine and EKU naturally landed on opposite sides of the bracket and we didn’t need to tweak it manually!
So there you have it, folks — first round matchups are set and we’re ready to get this party started! That’s all for this article. We’ll follow up with you guys NEXT WEEK when we break down the first round matchups of this tournament. We’ll run simulations and grab box scores and break down what happened in those games. Stay tuned for more from the FIRST ANNUAL BLUEGRASS CLASSIC!
ARTICLE SCHEDULE:
Thursday, May 4: Round 1 matchups (simulating and breaking down all 4 RD1 matchups).
Thursday, May 11: Semis and Finals (3 games to decide the 2023 Kentucky Bluegrass Kings).
Thursday, May 18: A couple of actually POSSIBLE, totally realistic (I guess?) versions of this tournament that really could maybe possibly work someday if we’re lucky. (Should I add more caveats there?)
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P.S. for all the ANTI-NIL absolutists out there, now that a college basketball video game is possible3 it’s only a matter of time before we are able to actually play this tournament even if it’s only in a virtual setting on your TV.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2021/11/north-carolina-wake-forest-non-conference-game-explainer
https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings
https://www.ourdailybears.com/baylor-basketball/2023/3/22/23651606/ncaa-college-basketball-video-game-we-need-it-ea