Oscar Robertson never quite understood all the bad blood, either. At last, the greatest University of Cincinnati basketball player is pleased to see Ohio State University finally agreeing to play UC in a home-and-home men's basketball series after nearly 100 years.

"They should play every year," said Robertson, a Naismith Hall of Fame player who turns 80 this month.

On Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at newly renovated Fifth Third Arena, the Bearcats and Buckeyes will open the season on ESPN2 with the first of a two-game home-and-home series. Next year, the teams will meet at Value City Arena in Columbus.

The schools have not met on each other's court during regular-season play since 1921. The Bearcats won that game 33-17, which was the home opener for the Buckeyes. Ohio State has not played the Bearcats in Cincinnati since Jan. 3, 1920, a 35-13 win for the Buckeyes.

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"I guess there was this feeling that if one team gets beat, it would hurt their recruiting or whatnot," Robertson said.

Theories for the long UC-OSU drought are many, some real and some imagined. A general belief is that Ohio State has refused to play UC mainly because of ill feelings from the 1961 and 1962 NCAA championship games, both won by the Bearcats in upsets over the Buckeyes. Other eras found each school accusing the other of recruiting violations or other misdeeds.

Beyond that, there is the feeling that big brother Ohio State simply has not wanted to risk the embarrassment of possibly losing to its biggest in-state threats UC, Xavier (last met OSU in 1934 in the regular season) and Dayton (last met in 1988 regular season), and thus has not scheduled them. OSU has played many other Ohio schools over the years, including games with Youngstown State and Cleveland State scheduled for this season.

So what's different this year?

A big reason for the UC-OSU thaw has been the relationships between the athletic directors (Mike Bohn at UC and Gene Smith at Ohio State) and head coaches (Mick Cronin at UC and Chris Holtmann at Ohio State).

Anthony Buford, a guard on UC's 1992 Final Four team, credits the current administrations with ending the acrimony between the schools.

"I just think that the climate, the people involved are different and that’s why you’re seeing this happen," Buford said.

"In the past that wouldn’t have been the case. I think Mick Cronin has a very solid relationship with the guy working at Ohio State (Holtmann) from when he was at Butler and when UC played them. I think Mike Bohn is a pretty aggressive and enthusiastic AD, and they were able to get it done."

There was also the small issue of UC wanting a big name for the reopening of Fifth Third Arena.

Said Bohn, "It's a win-win for everyone."

Second-year OSU coach Holtmann, speaking at an event that involved OSU fans last week, credited his athletic director Smith with helping seal the deal with UC.

“It’s one of the questions we got a lot when we took the job and I’ve been asked about that game a lot, the origins of that game," Holtmann said, per the Columbus Dispatch. "Gene Smith deserves a lot of credit as well because he didn’t tell me I had to do it, but he encouraged it to happen. Scheduling in big-time college basketball, it can take years to make happen. It just so happened that there was an opening in both of ours for a home-and-home.”

And times have changed.

The Big O also seems to think that good teams don't care about that it'll-hurt-recruiting fear anymore.

"Good teams will play you anywhere, any year," Robertson said.

UC athletic director Bohn, on the job in Clifton since 2014, has always employed a play-anyone, play-anywhere posture.

UC coach Cronin, in his 13th year as Bearcats head man, has always been willing to play OSU or anyone else.

"It’s great for basketball in Ohio, the two biggest universities in the state playing each other," said Cronin, who counts OSU's Holtmann as a friend. "It's good for our state, it’s good for high school basketball, it brings attention to both our universities nationally. Everything is positive about the game. Hopefully, it’s a series we can always play."

He added that it's irrelevant to him that the teams haven't played in the past.

But it has mattered.

Ohio State and UC have played only twice since 1962, both times at a neutral site. The Buckeyes beat the Bearcats in Indianapolis during the 2006-07 season and then in the 2012 NCAA Sweet 16 in Boston.

Before the 2012 game, OSU star Jared Sullinger told Newsday: "The last time these guys met was in, what, 1961?"

Sullinger was reminded that the two schools were paid by TV to play each other in December 2006, then continued:

"The next (before 2006) was 1961 and '62 in the national championship, I believe. So it still kind of has bad blood between the two schools."

Ohio State mostly shunned Cincinnati in basketball for the past 55 years, with the exception of that neutral-site game six years ago. Obviously, losing to the Bearcats didn't serve the interests of "The" Ohio State University, as the mammoth school likes to call itself.

Suggestions have been made for a four-team early-season tournament involving OSU, UC, Xavier and Dayton, with the games in Columbus two years of every four-year rotation to satisfy Ohio State. That would be easier said than done, with all the Thanksgiving tournaments and made-for-TV events already happening annually.

As a Cleveland.com story pointed out, some might say that's a bad move because Ohio State would have nothing to gain from it. Except the Buckeyes would gain a good, potentially resume-boosting game. And recently, UC, Xavier and sometimes Dayton should have been asking what they have to gain from playing an Ohio State program that has not been especially dominant lately.

Over the years, fans of both schools – two hours apart on Interstate 71 – have hoped the teams would play each year like other in-state rivals such as Louisville-Kentucky. But again, the OSU side usually prevented it.

Among the truths and legends, there was talk that OSU coach Randy Ayers (1989-97) would not play UC because he didn't like the way Bearcats coach Bob Huggins ran his program. There also was the fact that Huggins felt slighted when Ohio State – where he once was an assistant – wouldn't talk to him when it had a job opening in the 1990s.

Also, then-Ohio State AD Andy Geiger (1994-2005 at OSU) vowed he would not even consider renewing the rivalry with UC. Former OSU coach Thad Matta, also a former Xavier head coach, also was not keen on playing UC while Buckeyes coach from 2004-17. (Along the way, the two schools did decide to play each other in football again after a long drought. The most recent meeting was a 50-28 OSU win in Columbus in 2014.)

But when Bohn and Cronin started thinking about a big-name opponent to help reopen Fifth Third Arena, Ohio State was near the top of the list. With coaches Cronin and Holtmann being friends, that opened the door more.

"I was never quite sure why they didn’t want to play us," said Terry Nelson, like Buford a member of the UC 1992 Final Four team. "They had great teams with (All-American) Jim Jackson back then. We didn’t have an in-state rivalry going on, other than a crosstown rivalry (with Xavier). I don’t know how in the world we couldn’t be playing Ohio State.

"And to me it never made sense."

Current UC players admittedly don't know much about the rivalry, or lack thereof. Bearcats junior guard Jarron Cumberland, the team's top player and a Wilmington, Ohio, native, said most of his teammates are just becoming aware of what this new OSU series means.

"I don't know much about the history," Cumberland said. "It's very nice to play them again. I don't know how many years it's been, but we respect them. If we win, we'll have class with it."

Cronin emphasized that any bitterness between the schools has been forgotten, at least by him and current UC staff, players and administrators.

"It'd be interesting to see if there's anybody alive that actually saw the last time we played on campus," Cronin said. "I'm sure there are people who never thought they'd see it in their lifetime."

SERIES HISTORY: OHIO STATE LEADS 6-4



Ohio State leads the all-time series with the Bearcats 6-4. The teams have not met during regular-season play since 1921, which was the home opener for the Buckeyes and the only previous time the teams opened the season against one another. The Bearcats won that game 33-17. Ohio State played host to Cincinnati in five of the first six meetings, going 3-2 in those games. Ohio State has not played the Bearcats in Cincinnati since Jan. 3, 1920, a 35-13 win for the Buckeyes.



Three of the last four meetings have come during NCAA Tournament competition with all of the last four matchups contested on neutral courts. Ohio State was ranked No. 1 while the Bearcats were No. 2 in both the 1961 and 1962 NCAA national championship games with Cincinnati winning the national title both times.



No. 4 Ohio State downed the Bearcats 72-50 in the Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis Dec. 16, 2006. The most recent meeting was in the 2012 NCAA East Regional semifinals in Boston, an 81-66 win for the No. 7-ranked Buckeyes.



Date - Result

Feb. 4, 1905 – Ohio State won 42-6 in Columbus, Ohio

Jan. 15, 1907 – Cincinnati won 32-30 in Columbus, Ohio

Jan. 16, 1909 – Ohio State won 57-24 in Columbus, Ohio

Jan. 20, 1912 – Ohio State won 61-15 in Columbus, Ohio

Jan. 3, 1920 – Ohio State won 35-13 in Cincinnati

Dec. 10, 1921 – Cincinnati won 33-17 in Columbus, Ohio

March 25, 1961 – Cincinnati won 70-65 in overtime in the NCAA Tournament championship game in Kansas City, Missouri

March 24, 1962 – Cincinnati won 71-59 in the NCAA Tournament championship game in Louisville, Kentucky

Dec. 16, 2006 – Ohio State won 72-50 at the Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis

March 22, 2012 – Ohio State won 81-66 in the NCAA East Regional semifinals in Boston