It’s a new week, and a new college basketball landscape. As last week closed, our game continued to be slowly and forcibly moved toward the feared four-headed superconference era, with the Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten, and…wait, who was the fourth supposed to be? The Big East? The ACC? It was likely that those two would have had to fight it out (or combine) for survival, but the first blow struck in that conflict may turn out to be the killing shot. Over the weekend and seemingly from nowhere, the ACC made a pre-emptive strike on (sucker-punched?) the Big East, absorbing Syracuse and Pittsburgh like the Germans taking Danzig. The Big East — at least the glorious version of it we’ve enjoyed all our lives — is in serious trouble, with the code called and the crash cart on the way. On Friday, we were all talking about how those ineligible St. John’s recruits would affect their Big East campaign for 2011-12. We never thought we’d wake up today doubting there would even BE a Big East in three years. Is the Big East now the Big Deceased? Or, as Dan Wetzel tweeted, will it survive but simply be “less big and less east?” All that in mind, you can guess what dominates the M5 this morning:

1. We first heard news of the defections of Syracuse and Pittsburgh via CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy. On Saturday he also speculated on how he thinks the rest of the conferences will respond, as well as how those football-independent (but Big East basketball) Irish of Notre Dame might have their hands forced into choosing a new home. By the way, Coach K is totally on board with this whole expansion thing, is proud of the ACC leadership on the matter, and wants two more (Hi, Connecticut and Rutgers!). Not so keen on the idea are ESPN’s Dana O’Neil and evidently some guy named Jim freakin’ Boeheim.
2. It’s tough not to be a little disillusioned after reading Sunday’s article by Dennis Dodd, another CBSSports.com college football scribe, but that doesn’t mean his assertion is wrong regarding how difficult it is to find an honest man among those who run college sports. Some interesting takes therein, from Louisville AD Tom Jurich and an unnamed Big East source, especially. If you doubt that the conference realignment mess is about pride, power, and money, click the link above and get back to us when you’re done.
3. The case of Pittsburgh is an interesting one, because the Panthers happen to be led by one Jamie Dixon. An RTC favorite, the man unquestionably has one of the more clever minds in the basketball coaching biz, and he’s a young coach who — sorry, Pitt supporters — won’t be a Panther forever. Could the move to the ACC also be the thing that soon prompts Dixon to accept an offer from one of his many suitors? Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy spells out how the defection from the Big East might sound the death knell for Pittsburgh basketball.
4. Since we referenced them earlier, what do you do if you’re Louisville? The ACC has its own agenda and would probably prefer to add UConn and Rutgers. Would the Big Ten or SEC welcome U of L? How proactive can the Cardinals actually be? Can they afford to wait until the Big East disintegrates, or see if it survives by adding schools that could actually turn a profit? And if the conference survives, who does it go after? TCU is on the way (*forehead slap*). But on who else should the Big East set its sights? East Carolina? Xavier?!? BUTLER??? [Ed. Note: Butler. In the Big East. Whoa, time out on the floor. Getting…dizzy…may pass out…]
5. The final item here far supersedes in importance anything mentioned above, though the irony cannot be ignored. The moves out of the Big East by Syracuse and Pittsburgh first came to light on Friday, and people quickly began speculating as to whether it signalled the end of the conference. On Friday, Dave Gavitt, the man considered to be the founder of the Big East Conference, died at his home in Rhode Island of congestive heart failure, aged 73. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family today. Requiescat in pace, sir.

1. SI.com’s Andy Glockner (one of RTC’s favorites) has summarized the prospects of no less than 46 teams for the upcoming season…Twitter-style. Or, as he says in his intro, heh heh, “We’re going to do it quickly, @AndyGlockner-style.” A fun read, this, and a darn good follow if you’re not already among his legion of almost 6,000. This kind of thing isn’t easy, since the 140-character limit forces you to take what you’re trying to say and distill it down to the smallest thimbleful of demi-glace of your original point, and so many teams (Georgetown, this means you) have had extremely interesting summers. Shameless self-promotion: for the past couple of seasons we’ve tweeted a preview (a series we cleverly call “Tweeting the Preview”) every hour on the hour for every Division I team in the 344 hours leading up to the tipoff of the season’s first game, and we’ll be doing it again this October.
2. Florida State AD Randy Spetman remarked yesterday that while his school was keeping a sharp eye on all the conference realignment happenings and an ear tuned into the latest gossip, FSU is “comfortable in the ACC.” There’s certainly no reason to doubt that, but…it’s that word. “Comfortable.” We’ve known a lot of relationships in our day in which each partner felt comfortable but one of them bolted as quickly as they could when a more exciting option came along. And in the conference realignment game, excitement comes in the form of TV network dollars. With the kind of cash that’s being thrown around these days in the SEC (and Pac-12), which now needs a 14th member, we wouldn’t be surprised if FSU’s seat at the ACC table started to feel a little less comfortable and more on the lumpy side in the near future.
3. Dan Wiederer has covered the ACC for the past seven seasons for the Fayetteville Observer and, because of both his insight and his humor, has been a required read for any college basketball lover — especially those territorial Tobacco Road types — over that time span. He’s soon leaving his post there to cover something called the Minnesota Vikings (anyone?) for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and he hasn’t much time left. In one of his last articles for the FO, he recalls his five greatest moments during his seven-year run of chronicling ACC basketball. RTC is sorry to see this defection, another example of college basketball suffering at the hands of a football-related decision. Good luck at the new gig, Mr. W, and tell Tubby we said “‘Sup.” He’ll probably play that game, you know, where he acts like he doesn’t know us…
4. Right now we’re in one of those stretches on the calendar in which one usually sees an increase in the rate of stories about ballers getting into some mischief and ending up suspended for, say, an exhibition game and the season opener. Hey, it happens — these guys are back at school, they’re going to parties, the season is still weeks away, coaches are off recruiting, and all that. Hope we’re not jinxing it, but there hasn’t been much of that so far this year. Not that they’re particularly trouble-prone, but Lorenzo Romar has his charges at Washington occupying their time by helping out at various charities in the community. That alone would merit a link here, but the article also has a small photo of Desmond Simmons, Scott Suggs, and Darnell Gant wearing high heels. It was for a good cause, but we’re sorry, fellas. We couldn’t resist. You can probably expect to see enlarged versions of it at some road games this year, but because it was part of a charity appearance, you gents should be proud.
5. Even though the NCAA has asked him not to discuss the matter, Missouri head coach Frank Haith told StLToday.com that he “did nothing wrong at the University of Miami.” This is noteworthy because it’s the first public denial that we’ve heard from Haith regarding the allegation that he helped grease the rails for a $10,000 payment from the infamous Nevin Shapiro to then-recruit DeQuan Jones (now a senior) to secure the latter’s commitment to the basketball team. That is, it’s the first public direct denial; his few previous denials have been of the “non-denying” type. In the short linked article, Haith also mentions the effect it’s having on his recruiting efforts. Even though it’s not hard to predict what he said, there’s a pretty somber tone to his comments, as they’re written. If you’re a Mizzou fan, you should probably just skip this one.

According to the Gainesville Sun, earlier today Florida head coach Billy Donovan announced that junior forward Erik Murphy had been reinstated to the basketball team. Along with teammate Cody Larson and a team manager, Murphy was arrested back on April 12 because the young men felt the need to try and break into a car in St. Augustine. After pleading the charges down, Murphy paid some cash, did his community service, and completed a substance abuse evaluation program, according the the linked article. Murphy is also not allowed to partake of alcohol or any other controlled substance for the next ten months. The completion of the assigned legal punishments facilitated Murphy’s reinstatement to the team, according to Donovan.

Murphy Is Back, Having Fulfilled All His Legal Obligations

Because this is indeed the off-season and we’re several weeks away from the official start of team practices, one wonders how much team activity Murphy actually missed in serving the suspension from his squad. Nevertheless, if you’re a head coach, you have to do that sort of thing no matter the time of year. We’ll give credit to Murphy for completing his obligations without pushing the envelope on the beginning of practices in October and before individual workouts really heat up. Even considering the team’s Elite Eight showing last year, Gator fans expect nothing less in the upcoming, so we’re sure Murphy (4.3 PPG, 2.3 RPG in an average 10.7 MPG last season) is glad to have this behind him so he can concentrate on the obligations that come with being the only returning UF player taller than 6’9”. And yes, because his name is Erik Murphy, you’d probably expect an update on Vince, Drama, Ari and Turtle, as well, but because Entourage has been floundering for some time, we’ll let this opportunity for a joke pass without further comment.

1. Yesterday we mentioned the piece by SI.com’s Andy Glockner listing five teams that finished near the bottom of Ken Pomeroy’s luck statistic and why they should be in for some better fortune in the upcoming. Who, you may ask, finished dead last in that stat? Who was the unluckiest team in college hoops in 2010-11? The answer: the same team that finished last in luck in 2009-10! In fact, they did it under two different coaches. On Tuesday (not sure how it got by us), Mr. Glockner examined what exactly the luck statistic is and how this squad can avoid a three-peat of ill fate.
2. Whatever happens, DeQuan Jones at least knows that his family and friends have his back. The mother, high school coach and AAU coach of the Miami (FL) senior swingman released an understandably spiky response to “friend of the program” Nevin Shapiro’s allegation that a family member of Jones’ asked for $10,000 to insure Jones’ commital to the Hurricanes from high school. The most compelling part of their story is the timeline; Jones had already verballed and signed his letter of intent to attend Miami a full seven months prior to the time Shapiro says the payola request was made. Certainly not the end of the matter, but the linked article by the Miami Herald‘s Michelle Kaufman will bring you up to speed.
3. If you’re reading a college basketball blog, you’re likely aware that there are many players who are not just student-athletes but also innocents abroad from their foreign homes. There’s a pretty big international competition called the Summer Olympics in about a year, and a couple of fellows recently learned that they may find themselves in London playing for their respective national teams. Saint Louis’ Rob Loe was called up to New Zealand’s national side for a best-of-three series against Australia next week for the right to go to the Olympics, and College of Charleston’s Andrew Lawrence — a native Londoner — made the final cut for the national team from Great Britain, meaning he’ll get to play in the Olympics in his hometown. This seems like as good a time as any to remind you that, because of their uniforms, the formidable NZ national rugby team is called the All Blacks. Playing off that, New Zealanders call their basketball team…the Tall Blacks.
4. College basketball fans have seen the occasional boon resulting from this whole NBA lockout nonsense, and another one just came to fruition. We didn’t get to see a Jimmer Fredette vs. Kemba Walker matchup last season, but the two have agreed to participate in a pair of games in Utah featuring two teams comprised of NBA rookies, presumably a bunch of guys trying to understandably stay in playing shape. BYU head coach Dave Rose will lead Fredette’s team, while San Diego State boss Steve Fisher will coach the Walker side. We don’t know who else will be involved, but we wouldn’t mind if Kemba and The Jimmer just ended up playing what would amount to a full-court 1-on-1 game while the others rebounded for them.
5. The people who run Kelley Farms in Lexington, Kentucky undoubtedly love two things: John Calipari, and — evidently less so — corn. As basketball fans, it would be difficult for them to go all Ray Kinsella and clear out crop space for a court, since that wouldn’t make quite the economic impact as Kevin Costner’s character’s baseball field, and basketballs don’t bounce well on uneven dirt. Instead, they decided on a John Calipari corn maze, open for the public to get lost in on September 23. We’ll be waiting to hear if any ghosts from Kentucky’s glorious past emerge from the stalks. Perhaps farm owner John Kelley heard a voice telling him, “If he comes, you will build it.” Yeah, we know — enough with the Field Of Dreams references.

1. The SEC is hungry and continues to feed. Texas A&M is a nice meal but won’t suffice, and this is not a good thing, according to Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy. He asks the important and logical next question: who’s next? Not only does he list the schools most likely to be willingly absorbed by the SEC, he explains why each school should resist the temptation to allow that to happen. And if you think this is all about money, think again. There’s something more sinister fueling the current thinking behind conference realignment.
2. We think he’s still mad at one of our editors who recently decided to root for Liverpool in the EPL, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t give credit to SI.com’s Andy Glockner and his article yesterday listing five teams that are due for a run of improved luck in the upcoming season. These squads weren’t randomly selected; each one finished in the bottom 50 in men’s D1 basketball in Ken Pomeroy’s luck statistic. A couple of Big Ten teams made the list, but the team that intrigued us the most was an Atlantic 10 side that hasn’t seen the NCAA Tournament in 11 years.
3. Most of the time when we mention stories on former college basketball players, it’s a star who’s recently graduated/left the game who has done something altruistic with part of their big new paycheck, or dunked on someone in a summer league, or tweeted something stupid, and so on. Take a few minutes out of your day like we did — assuming you didn’t do so yesterday — to read the story by ESPN’s Dana O’Neil about a former Alcorn State player who found himself in the middle of the civil war in Libya and the unfathomable ordeal that became his attempt to get out of there. We can’t imagine the frustration that must seethe within a man who, when his government tells him, “You should make for the local airport,” gets to say something to the effect of, “Oh, really? Yeah, it’s burned down,” as AK-47s clatter a few hundred feet away.
4. With a recent front office changes that had to please him and a top recruit suddenly on the way for the approaching season — plus, he had been running things from the office over the summer and has certainly been out recruiting — pardon our lack of surprise about the big news out of Connecticut yesterday confirming Jim Calhoun is indeed going to return to coach the Huskies. Nothing’s changing. Everything’s the same. Wait just a moment, this just in from the RTC overseas services wire…yes, sources are confirming to our man on the ground in Spain that Generalissimo Francisco Franco — say it with us, everyone — is still dead.
5. Because of recent examples that lend support to the theory, we hear so much talk these days about the negatives of college sports, so often reading phrases like “cesspool of corruption” and “miasma of deceit” (both real) to describe intercollegiate athletics in our time. It’s therefore nice to hear, even just once, an example of a college athlete openly defying the seduction of riches, thereby denying the doomsayers and Debbie Downers another headline. In that spirit, we give you North Carolina’s Kendall Marshall, via Twitter yesterday:

1. We weighed in yesterday on the product-of-a-slow-news-day controversy involving the media relations department at Kentucky and the school’s student-run newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel. We won’t rehash the whole thing here, but now the AP Managing Editors Association has responded to UK, calling the behavior of the school’s Sports Information Department “reprehensible” and “abhorrent at a taxpayer-owned institution.” Seriously? Without mentioning the actions of the involved student reporter, they also “urge” UK to restore the media access of both the paper and the reporter, even though their access was denied for less than 24 hours and was probably restored in full before the APME even wrote that letter. Did they read anything about this before sending it? It comes off like a formality.
2. “2012 NCAA Tournament Champions Michigan Wolverines.” Sound good, Ann Arbor? Your boy Jordan Dumars thinks so. Not only does he think it sounds good, he thinks it should happen, and confirms that that’s what his team says — “national championship” — at the end of every workout. Dumars, a transfer who will become eligible by the holidays, is not predicting nor guaranteeing such an achievement, just saying that’s where the squad is aiming. We wholeheartedly support players taking this tack when asked to give prognostications on how they think their upcoming season will go. If a kid says something like, “Well, I think we’ll go 20-14 and hopefully do well in the Tournament,” as far as we’re concerned, he just lost 14 games and got bounced in the second (former first) round. Strong work, Jordan.
3. In yesterday’s M5 we slipped in a link about how Texas A&M’s president had, according to a report in the New York Times, sent a later containing his school’s kiss-off to the Big 12. The school denies this ever happened. A&M, however, confirms receiving a letter from the office of Big 12 commish Dan Beebe detailing the withdrawal procedures for leaving the conference. And by “detailing the withdrawal procedures,” we pretty much mean “explaining how much it will cost you” and “things we need to sign saying we won’t sue each other.” The linked article above notes that while A&M would like to have this done by the beginning of the season, it may take until week two or three. In other words, folks, get on board with this if you aren’t already.
4. Recruiting insider and (from what we hear) legendary ladies’ man Evan Daniels and the crew at Scout.com have released their rankings of schools’ recruiting classes for 2012, and we wonder how loud the alarm bells will sound within a few fan bases: North Carolina’s class is 9th? Duke 11th? Kentucky…not listed in the top 20 or the honorable mention?!? Relax, you various shades of blue. It’s hard to ascend the rankings when you don’t sign anyone. Duke’s ranking is based on one player, UNC’s on two. Kentucky hasn’t signed a single player from the 2012 class. There’s a reason Daniels entitled this list the “Early 2012 Class Rankings.” Just over half of Scout’s top 100 recruits for 2012 are unsigned, so unfortunately for a certain blueblood school that’s been rebuilding for a few years that sits atop the current Scout list, it’s not a matter of if but how far they’ll fall once prospects start making their selections.
5. Every one of the RTC compounds is lousy with recycling bins and solar panels, so we’re all about recycling and reusing and sustainability and all that stuff, and letting people know you’re proud of the measures you’ve taken to reduce your impact on the environment. To that end, Kansas State has unleashed — fanfare, please — EcoKat, their mascot for the whole green-going movement. Whoa. For the sake of the KSU senior in the costume (whose pluck we admire), here’s hoping that EcoKat is never unmasked and her true identity never revealed. Ladies and gentlemen, we ask you…how hot is this?

The ink on Bruce Pearl’s three-year show-cause sanction from the NCAA is barely dry, and he’s already found his next job. Pearl has agreed to the position of VP of Marketing for the Knoxville-based H.T. Hackney company, one of the biggest wholesale grocers in the country. We haven’t been able to confirm this yet, but RTC is going on record as saying that Hackney’s CEO, William Sansom, will not have to go before the NCAA to justify why it wants to hire the former Tennessee boss.

Pearl: From Volunteer to VP to...We'll See

OK, we’re ribbing Pearl a little, there, but frankly, we like the move. A lot of guys who have achieved Pearl’s level of success would shun opportunities like this, knowing how they’d be made fun of for going from the heights of men’s Division I hoops to a wholesale grocer (though it is a $4 billion a year outfit). Pearl doesn’t care about this, and we think that’s something to admire. What’s more is…it’s a VP job in marketing. Not an easy day’s work, usually, but we also know a lot of marketing VPs who do absolutely no work at all. We predict that Pearl — a marketing and economics major in college, according to the linked article — will have a workload that falls somewhere in-between there but closer to the latter.

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1. We’ve been on record for a while with our belief that the summer trips abroad that teams take to play exhibitions against foreign squads pay off in currencies that have little to do with the on-court aspects of basketball and more to do with overall esprit-de-corps and the broadening of minds of 18-22 year-olds. We like that Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson seems to agree. The Des Moines Register‘s Mark Emmert (not that one, we assume) noted that a few schools in the state of Iowa got to go to some pretty amazing places this summer — Australia, Italy, and Brazil, anyone? — with Jacobson quoted as saying, “The time away from (strictly basketball activities) becomes beneficial, just building that team chemistry and the trust and the things that have to be there if you’re going to put together a good season.”
2. Mark Turgeon has Gary Williams to thank for the recent inking of 7’1”, 225-pound Ukranian Olexiy Len to the Terps’ roster for the upcoming season — the program had been recruiting Len before Turgeon arrived and finalized the deal — and already Len has vaulted himself into the upper reaches of our favorite players for 2011-12. He said that the first time he ever saw Maryland play was against Duke at Comcast in 2010, a game that ended in a big ol’ RTC. Len’s impression: “I could not believe the atmosphere…it was unbelievable.” Around here, we don’t necessarily advocate every RTC, but when used properly…well, don’t tell us it doesn’t mean anything. It certainly did last year to a kid in the Ukraine who now finds himself en route to the College Park Campus.
3. After seven years of the previous version, there is a new floor at Kansas State’s Bramlage Coliseum. We like the balance struck, here. There are some progressive tones but still a traditional feel. Put better, they didn’t go overboard but still made it cool. The purple octagon outline? Nice. The darker “intra-arc” wood? We’re on board. The PowerCat in the center? Perfect size. Well done all around. We imagine it will bring a smile even to Frank Martin’s face (we kid, we kid). Take note, Northwestern.
4. Speaking of K-State, are they really, as the Kansas City Star’s Sam Mellinger puts it, “one step above hosed” when it comes to likely shake-outs of the next phase of conference realignment? Some experts believe that Kansas would do better to disregard pressure from in-state influences and do whatever Missouri does. A KU-Mizzou bond pretty much cements a solid rivalry around Kansas City, one of the country’s most college-sports-crazy markets. Kansas State, says Mr. Mellinger’s expert, has the most to lose in the end, and in this swirling magma that represents the early evolution of eventual superconferences, has a profile that doesn’t fit the SEC as much as it does the MAC. My, the deals, alliances and secret handshakes that must quietly be happening in that proverbial Big 12 backroom. By the way, has anyone seen Texas A&M?
5. Morgan State’s Todd Bozeman knows all about that big ice cube on which Bruce Pearl is about to sit. Bozeman was a 32 year-old hot shot at California when he got slapped with a show-cause from the NCAA for paying Jelani Gardner’s parents $30,000 and then lying about it. His show-cause penalty was for eight years, though, which ended up keeping him out of coaching for ten. Pearl will be 55 years old when his three-year show-cause ends in 2014. Could any coach hit with such a penalty ever come back to a level anywhere near that which they once achieved? It seems darn near impossible once you’ve been stigmatized with the show-cause, and that’s obviously the point. Nooga.com’s Brendan Quinn recounts the story of Bozeman and ponders the fate of Pearl in an interesting piece.

1. Jimmer Fredette will be moving up to the next level soon, and what we’re talking about there has nothing to do with basketball. The Jimmer announced his engagement to his girlfriend (and BYU cheerleader) Whitney via Twitter over the weekend with a photo and statement summarizing his excitement. Subsequently, jokes — most of them well-meaning, it seemed — began to fly throughout the tweetosphere regarding how Whitney is a senior at BYU and therefore still under the school’s honor code, so she’d have to play, er, a sort of defense a little longer, a subject on which she could educate him. Ah, those clever Twitter kids. In all seriousness, we extend our congratulations to the pair.
2. What do you have when you take a Marquette guy who loves advanced statistics and wants to apply them to college basketball, a possible brand new and downright compelling new statistic developed by that fellow that could help determine the most valuable players in college hoops (and finds that Jordan Taylor of his rival Wisconsin is atop the list!), a college basketball blog we love, and combine all that into a Luke Winn article? You have what we call a good time, friends. Ever heard of Ken Horton from Central Connecticut State? Familiarize yourself. Is Taylor more valuable than Jared Sullinger or Tu Holloway? Hmmm. See for yourself. All we can say is God bless you, John Pudner.
3. What’s Oklahoma State boss Travis Ford got up his sleeve? Via Twitter last week he made a cryptic reference to some “exciting non-conference schedule information” as well as “a possible roster addition early next week.” Well, now that’s this week, and there’s some speculation that the surprise may come in the rather large form of 7’0”, 235-pound Marek Soucek from the Czech Republic, a highly sought-after recruit whose name happens to now appear in the OSU student directory. Actually, Soucek hasn’t left the Czech Republic yet. What’s going on here? John Helsley of The Oklahoman wonders, too.
4. Everyone obviously knows about the Georgetown vs Bayi fight during the Hoyas’ trip to China from a couple of weeks ago. While the fiasco itself is likely ever to be pointed to by historians as a high-impact moment in the arc of Sino-American relations, it is interesting to examine reasons that might have led to such an event. Tom Gold is a sociology professor from UC Berkeley and is something of an expert on events in the (so-called) Far East; in a recent interview with Asian American Press, Dr. Gold discussed the thinking that may have been behind this from the Chinese viewpoint. A short piece, but it contains some interesting takes.
5. Retirement, schmetirement, let’s play ball. That’s evidently the mindset of San Diego State’s Steve Fisher, who just signed a four-year extension with the Aztecs, according to a late-night report from ESPN’s Andy Katz. As Katz points out, leading the school to its first-ever Sweet 16 could have served as an appropriate exiting point for Fisher, and then you throw in that the coach was treated for prostate cancer just over three years ago and his star from last season is gone…well, such an extension might come to some as a surprise. We doubt anyone in San Diego’s complaining, though, and if we’re talking about good health and normal blood tests (look at Katz, dropping some PSA knowledge!), we’re glad to see this happen.

Make your pilgrimage now, Kentucky fans, and take as many photos as you can, for the Rupp Arena you have worshiped for so long is on borrowed time.

An article from Tuesday’s Lexington Herald-Leader by Beverly Fortune and Jerry Tipton has us thinking that it’s merely a question of time, now, and which model to follow. Do the powers that be in the Bluegrass go the Fenway Park route and make piecemeal renovations over several years to the existing structure in downtown Lexington, or do they adopt the Yankee Stadium philosophy and build a brand new church arena elsewhere? Among UK backers, a discussion on this matter can get every bit as heated as one between Red Sox and Yankees fans about which group has the right to claim moral ascendancy.

Renovate the Old Or Start Afresh? Rupp In Its Current Form (image: uky.edu)

Fenway might call itself the oldest sports venue used by a sports franchise in the United States, but it’s undergone an almost yearly series of alterations since 1999 to bring up to speed everything from the sod to the seats to the scoreboards. Heck, there’s even a party deck. Most importantly, the renovations have been so well done that, even though this isn’t your grandfather’s Fenway Park, Boston officials say that the place has another 60 years of life in it and you can forget any plans for a replacement. Yankee Stadium, as we know, received a different treatment; the one built in 1923 hosted its inhabitants for the last time in 2008 and was demolished in 2010, a year after the Yanks had moved into a brand new glittering jewel of a stadium called…Yankee Stadium. Aside from a tendency for balls hit to right field to carry a little longer than they did in the old park (this happened even when the Yankee pitching situation was more stable), it opened to raves, not to mention a championship in its first year.

So what fate, then, for old Rupp Arena? If it can be updated in its current location, should it be? Or is it time for a brand new facility?

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