8) We need more events like the Crossroads Classic
In case you’re unfamiliar, the Crossroads Classic is held in Indianapolis every year and pits the four biggest basketball programs in the state of Indiana – IU, Butler, Notre Dame, and Purdue – against each other. The result is two awesome, high-profile games on a neutral court that generates a ton of fan interest.
So why don’t more states do this? I’d certainly like to see more of these pop up across the country.
Ohio would be a great state for this with Ohio State, Cincinnati, Xavier, and Dayton – and all of them play in different conferences, so they could have a legitimate four-team tournament.
Kentucky (UK, Louisville, Western Kentucky, Murray State) and Tennessee (Tennessee, Memphis, Vanderbilt, Middle Tennessee) would both have excellent setups as well, and I had a lot of people on Twitter calling for the state of Virginia to have a similar event (Virginia, Virginia Tech, VCU, Old Dominion).
Now, these can’t happen in all states because conference opponents can’t play each other in non-conference play and not every state has four legitimate high-profile programs. But I absolutely think that every state should do it if they can. It’s great for the sport.