SEC, Big 12 Announce Agreement for Men’s Basketball Series

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WCBI/SEC) – The Southeastern Conference and Big 12 Conference have agreed to play in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, a men’s basketball inter-conference event that will begin during the 2013-14 season.

“The ability to showcase SEC basketball in this kind of conference competition makes this a unique and exciting event for our coaches, student-athletes and fans,” SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said. “We are pleased to be able to work with the Big 12 and ESPN to highlight the sport of men’s basketball.”

All 10 of the Big 12’s teams and 10 of the SEC’s 14 member institutions will participate in the annual event. Arkansas, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee will not play in the first year. ESPN will provide exclusive coverage of all 10 games across it networks.

Eight of the 10 games in the 2013 event will be played at home sites (each conference has four home games) and two matchups will be at neutral sites.

The inaugural Big 12/SEC Challenge (the event title will rotate to SEC/Big 12 Challenge in 2014) is a combination of existing games already scheduled along with new matchups created for this event during November and December. The two conferences and ESPN will work to schedule matchups over consecutive days in future events.

2013 Big 12/SEC Challenge schedule (times and networks are to be determined):

Thursday, November 14:   Texas Tech at Alabama

Monday, December 2:    Vanderbilt at Texas

Auburn at Iowa State

Thursday, December 5:  Ole Miss at Kansas State

West Virginia at Missouri

TCU at Mississippi State

Friday, December 6:     South Carolina at Oklahoma State

Kentucky vs. Baylor (Arlington, Texas)

Tuesday, December 10:       Kansas at Florida

Saturday, December 21:      Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma (Houston, Texas)