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Pack your bags, Michigan fans — you’re headed to London to face a basketball blue blood.
Per a release by the Michigan basketball program, the Wolverines have announced a three-game series with Kentucky, starting in 2020-21, with the first game taking place in the UK capital city. Then, a home-and-home between the two.
Read the whOle press release:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The University of Michigan and the University of Kentucky have signed a three-year men’s basketball deal that will take both teams to London, England, in the 2020-21 season as well as a home-and-home series for the following two campaigns.
The first year of the three-year commitment will feature a neutral-site game at O2 Arena in London in December of 2020. The London game will be hosted by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and serve as a fundraiser for the Hall.
This will be the first NCAA Division I college basketball game to be played at O2 Arena, one of the world’s most popular venues. All further details on play date, game time, television partner, ticket pricing, ancillary events and ticket on-sale will be announced in January of 2020.
Following the game in London, Michigan and Kentucky will then play a home-and-home series starting in Ann Arbor at Crisler Center in 2021 followed by a return trip to Lexington and Rupp Arena in 2022.
“When the idea of playing Kentucky came up, we knew it would be an exciting opportunity, not only for ourselves, but for our fans as well,” said U-M coach Juwan Howard. “What a unique three-game series. First, we get to showcase collegiate basketball overseas in London before playing that traditional home-and-home series in front of two of the nation’s best basketball environments. We cannot wait.”
Michigan has traveled out of the United States in the regular season five times previously but will be playing its first game in Europe. All five previous trips have been to the Caribbean, with the most recent trip happening a week ago in Paradise Island, Bahamas, where the Maize and Bluecaptured the 2019 Battle 4 Atlantis championship. U-M also appeared in the Battle 4 Atlantis in 2015-16, the Puerto Rico Holiday Classic in 1997-98, the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands in 2002-03, and the Puerto Rico Tip-Off in 2013-14.
U-M and Kentucky have met on seven occasions with UK holding the 5-2 all-time series advantage. The Wolverines and Wildcats will meet up for the first time since the 2013-14 campaign when Kentucky came away with a victory over U-M in the NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional final.
Prior to the 2014 meeting, the two squads had not met since the 1992-93 season, when Howard and the Wolverines defeated Kentucky in the Final Four in New Orleans.
Michigan and Kentucky will meet each other in on-campus contests for the first time since 1970, as UK will make just its second-ever trip to Ann Arbor in 2021 and U-M will travel to Lexington for the fourth time in the history of the two programs.
Michigan is 0-1 in Ann Arbor and 1-2 in Lexington against the Wildcats.