A Kentucky college basketball tournament would be great. Let's plan it

Jeff Greer | Courier Journal

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Western Kentucky basketball coach Rick Stansbury has an idea, and I like it.

"I wish we could come up with some kind of tournament," he said Monday night. "... How we could get Kentucky and Louisville, ourself and another school in a tournament somewhere. It'd be great for everybody."

It'd especially be great for college basketball fans and local sponsors in the commonwealth. Think about it: Kentucky's college basketball programs come together for some kind of statewide competition in a similar mold as the Crossroads Classic held every year in Indianapolis, and let the good times roll.

Let's forget for a second that Kentucky and Louisville, the state's two top-flight programs who share the most popular modern-day rivalry, already play each other once a season. Let's also forget they likely wouldn't want to play each other a second time — or play a series of very intense nonconference, early-season games against in-state programs hungry to beat them.

Instead, let's plan it.

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First of all, the likeliest option is rotating the event between the KFC Yum Center in Louisville and Rupp Arena in Lexington. Or, and now I'm getting a little crazy here, what if they built a raised-floor court like those ESPN events on military bases in far-flung locations, and they held the event at Churchill Downs or Keeneland?

Plan A

The first option is to copy the Crossroads Classic and just have two games in one day, with Kentucky, Louisville, Western Kentucky and any combination of Eastern Kentucky, Morehead State, Murray State or Northern Kentucky. Based on recent success, Murray State or NKU would bring the most juice to the field.

The four-team setup where Murray State/NKU and WKU play Louisville and Kentucky every other year works because it would allow the separate Kentucky-Louisville rivalry game to continue.

Plan B

What about a setup similar to Plan A, only instead of Murray State/NKU and WKU automatically in the four-team field, those two play a round robin with EKU and Morehead State?

Each team plays four "qualifying" games. The top two teams play in the event with Kentucky and Louisville.

Plan C

OK, one more variation of plans A and B before I introduce my favorite idea: Forget the pre-scheduled Kentucky-Louisville game and make it a four-team knockout-style tournament.

Again, Murray State or NKU probably gets in as the fourth program. Winners advance to a championship; losers play a consolation game.

Plan D

This is my wildest idea and it's the one I love the most. Let's mix in some Division II programs (I think they're allowed to do that) and make it a 10-team tournament. Bellarmine, Kentucky State and Kentucky Wesleyan already play the in-state Division I teams as it is.

Have those three and one Division I team, picked from a hat but excluding Kentucky and Louisville, play in opening-round games.

The two winners then advance to take on Kentucky and Louisville and the other four Division I teams in the field.

The seeding in this madness would be determined by the previous season's record of each team.

Let the chaos ensue.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Jeff Greer: 502-582-4044; jgreer@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @jeffgreer_cj. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jeffg.