John Calipari: TV networks jeopardizing marquee games

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Blame television for killing off potential regular-season marquee matchups in college basketball. 

That's according to Kentucky coach John Calipari, who said conferences moving to a 20-game league slate is for "the networks" and will hurt flexibility and versatility in nonconference scheduling.  

"They need more inventory for their own network so you just play more league games and then you have more inventory for your network to put on," Calipari said via teleconference Tuesday. "Hopefully in our case in this league (the Southeastern Conference) we stay where we are and if we don't, we'll make it work."

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The Atlantic Coast Conference will go from an 18-game league schedule to 20 games in 2019-20 season. That switch was part of an agreement between the ACC and ESPN when the ACC Network was announced to launch. 

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told ESPN on Monday that his conference was also considering an increase to 20 league games a season.  

"What you do is, you take away some of those kind of games that have been good to us," Calipari said. "North Carolina, for example: If they go to 20 games we won't have any more series with North Carolina, so I'm not for it." 

The SEC plays an 18-game schedule, including three permanent home-and-home opponents, two rotating home-and-home opponents, four lone home contests and four lone away matchups. 

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Calipari prefers that the two games that could be added to league play remain in the nonconference portion, so each coach and program can address needs and preferences. 

"I wouldn't be for it," Calipari said. "Obviously I'm not going to get a vote on it. I just think that what all of us do outside our league is very important."

To that point, the SEC ranked fifth among conferences last season, behind the Big 12, ACC, Big East and Big Ten and ahead of the Pac 12, according to Ken Pomeroy. Strength of schedule, in and out of conference, comes into play in March, for both seeding and teams bidding for entry into the NCAA Tournament.

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"I think teams can use those last two games to put their own schedule together," Calipari said. "If you need a tougher game, if you have a rivalry game, if you need an easier game, if your team needs a team they can beat or a team they're challenged by, if they need a road game, you can do it with those two games."