Matchups released for 2023 Big 12-SEC Challenge
The 10th annual Big 12-SEC Challenge is coming up this January, and the matchups for this year’s event were announced on Thursday, including a road game against an old foe for the defending national champions and a brand-new cross conference matchup for Kansas State.
In the headline game of this year’s challenge, Kansas will go to Rupp Arena to face the Kentucky Wildcats, the second year in a row and fifth time overall those two have played as part of the event. Between those games and the Champions Classic, KU and UK are now playing for the eighth time in nine years. The most-played matchup in Big 12-SEC Challenge history pits the two winningest programs in college basketball history against one another.
On the opposite end of the spectrum K-State will play someone they haven’t seen in any setting in a decade this year, hosting the Florida Gators. The last time those teams faced off was Dec. 22, 2012 when the Wildcats earned a 67-61 win over Billy Donovan’s Gators in Kansas City.
The full 2023 Big 12-SEC Challenge schedule is below, with all games scheduled for Jan. 28:
Arkansas at Baylor
Iowa State at Missouri
Kansas at Kentucky
Florida at Kansas State
Alabama at Oklahoma
Ole Miss at Oklahoma State
TCU at Mississippi State
Texas at Tennessee
Texas Tech at LSU
Auburn at West Virginia
Kentucky is another marquee matchup on KU’s 2022-23 nonconference schedule, one which already includes multiple high-profile programs and NCAA tournament teams from a year ago. In December, the Jayhawks will play Seton Hall in the Big 12-Big East Battle, plus games against Gonzaga and Indiana at home in December. They’ll also open the year against Duke at the Champions Classic, plus the renewal of the Border Showdown with Missouri on the road and a trip to the Bahamas to face a loaded field at the Battle 4 Atlantis.
As for Kansas State, with the addition of the Florida game the Wildcats have now publicly announced four contests and their preseason tournament for the upcoming season. After starting the year at the Cayman Islands Classic, K-State has a trip to Indianapolis to face Butler on the schedule for the Big 12-Big East Battle, it will welcome Wichita State to Manhattan in December and it will take on Nebraska in Kansas City for this year’s Wildcat Classic.
