Herald-Times report shows Kentucky rejected IU’s compromise to continue series
“We were trying to find something that worked well for everyone,” Glass said by phone. “That was a suggestion that a number of people had written in to me had made. That four-year plan struck me as a fairly good idea. We reached out in the spirit of compromise to save the series and to save the ability for our students to see at least one Indiana-Kentucky game on campus in their tenure.”
Glass said both in the letter and by phone that Indiana tried to make several other concessions to Kentucky to ease some of their logistical concerns. Kentucky had scheduled a game with Portland on Dec. 8 — the second Saturday in December when the IU-Kentucky game is traditionally played. Breaking the contract with Portland required a $100,000 buyout, but Glass said in the letter and by phone that Indiana offered to split half of that buyout to make it work. The letter also said that Indiana was willing to move this year’s game to Dec. 22 and move a conflicting game the Hoosiers had scheduled to make that possible.
Glass said that he and Barnhart had several phone conversations and that they were involved in a conference call that also included several other administrators in both athletic departments. However, on May 23, Kentucky coach John Calipari made a scheduling related post on his blog that discussed the revival of the Wildcats’ series with North Carolina and his attempts to begin a series at neutral sites with Duke. Glass said he called Barnhart to find out if that meant that negotiations were off. According to the letter, IU director of basketball operations Jayd Grossman received a call from Kentucky executive associate athletics director DeWayne Peevy saying that Kentucky would refuse a contract lasting more than two years.
Filed to: Kentucky Wildcats