BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Sky's blue. Blood's red. Kentucky basketball is the indoor version of Alabama football.

We hold these truths, in this neck of the woods, to be self-evident. Never mind that it's been 14 years since Kentucky basketball won it all while Alabama owns two of the last three crystal footballs.

There's another glaring discrepancy between the top cats in the SEC in their respective sports.

The conference takes care of the Wildcats with its basketball schedule.

As for the Crimson Tide in football, not so much.

It's old news that Alabama football has to play a lot of opponents coming off bye weeks. The new news is that the SEC basketball schedule gives Kentucky more time to prepare for conference games than anyone else in the league, and the latest example came at Alabama's expense.

Last week, Kentucky played Arkansas at home Tuesday night, then had three full days to prepare for its Saturday noon tipoff, also at home, against Alabama.

The Crimson Tide had a slightly different itinerary.

Play Vanderbilt on Thursday night in Coleman Coliseum. Practice Friday in Tuscaloosa from 3-5 p.m. Fly out of Tuscaloosa by charter at 6 p.m. Get to the team hotel in Lexington at 8:30 local time.

Breakfast and film study Saturday at 8 a.m. Leave the team hotel at 10 a.m. Arrive at Rupp Arena a little more than 90 minutes before tipoff. Play one-loss, second-ranked Kentucky at noon local time.

Kevin Scarbinsky is a columnist for The Birmingham News. His column is published on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

Alabama, which should've had dead legs, played Kentucky off its feet but lost 77-71. That's not the point. This is the point. The SEC gave Alabama a Thursday-Saturday turnaround, with tip times 41 hours apart and the second game on the road, and handed Kentucky a Tuesday-Saturday week.

The CBS announcers asked Anthony Grant about that imbalance before the game Saturday. In his typically stoic way, Grant refused to use it as an excuse. "It is what it is," he said.

Grant's smart to try to keep the schedule from getting in his team's head, but what it is is patently unfair.

Florida's Billy Donovan and Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings know it, and they've complained about it in the last two weeks. On Monday, Donovan cited the differences in the Alabama and Kentucky schedules from last week.

"If you're trying to get more teams into the NCAA Tournament, don't put the teams inside your league into a competitive disadvantage," Donovan said. That's not too much to ask, but that's exactly what the SEC schedule did last week to Alabama and will do to the Crimson Tide again next month.

On Thursday, Feb. 23, Alabama will play at Arkansas. Two days later, Alabama will play host to Mississippi State, which will be coming off a Tuesday night home game against Kentucky. At least Alabama's second game in that three-day span will be at home with a 5 p.m. CT tipoff.

Now back to Kentucky. The Wildcats didn't have one Thursday-Saturday week during the SEC season last year and don't have one this year. They do have four Saturday games this season against conference opponents coming off a Thursday game. That's a major competitive advantage for the Wildcats.

"Go figure that out for me, would you?" Stallings said. "We all agreed to do it (play Thursday-Saturday for television), so if you have one (of those weeks), like we have one, I'm not going to complain. To not have any and to be able to play four teams that have to do it to play you ... that's not right."

I know. It's a TV thing. TV loves Kentucky basketball, and the 'Cats have earned their frequent Super Tuesday spots on ESPN. But the rest of the league deserves a more level playing field.

On the bright side, Alabama should be better prepared for March when you have to play daily in the SEC Tournament and Thursday-Saturday or Friday-Sunday in the NCAA Tournament. Even better, unlike Kentucky last week, the Tide's postseason opponents will be on the same schedule.

Drop a civil comment below. Write Kevin at

. Follow him at