College Basketball Rivalry Week

As any college basketball enthusiast knows, last week was Rivalry Week in Division I. Texas played at Texas A&M. Michigan played at Ohio State. University of Southern California went across town to play UCLA. Kansas State traveled to in-state rival Kansas. Pittsburgh played at West Virginia. North Carolina played at Duke. Oklahoma State played at Oklahoma. Florida played at Kentucky. You get the idea. Throughout college basketball arenas all over the country, environments were much more hostile than usual, and the media couldn't have been more excited. Click here to find out which games analysts expected to generate the most excitement.

One of the most talked-about rivalries of the week was the No. 1 Florida Gators taking on the No. 18 Kentucky Wildcats. At Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky., a record crowd of 24,465 people gathered in hopes of seeing Kentucky have its 400th home victory. Much to their disappointment, the Florida Gators dominated the beginning of the game. They led by as much as 16 in the first half. After two Florida players got into foul trouble, Kentucky was able to make a run and cut the lead to single digits. Unfortunately for the Kentucky Wildcats, they put forth a good effort in the second half and made it a one-possession game, but they were unable to attain a lead at any time in the game. A last-second attempt to tie the game was missed by the Wildcats, and Florida left with another tally in the win column. That makes the Gators the first Southeastern Conference team to score five consecutive wins against Kentucky in men's basketball since Tennessee did it from 1975-1977.

Even though Saturday night ended in heartbreak for Wildcats fans, they still had an exciting day. The game didn't start until 9 p.m., but fans entered at 9:30 a.m. for the taping of the 11 a.m. to noon ESPN College GameDay show. This was only the second time GameDay stopped for a home game at Kentucky. This brought a lot of attention to the university and its athletic program. The media coverage provided a ton of publicity for both the University of Kentucky and the University of Florida. Days prior to the event, ESPN featured commercials hyping some of the games that would take place during the week. The Florida-Kentucky rivalry was among the featured match-ups. From a public relations perspective, the concept of a rivalry week is a terrific way to promote universities and their sports programs. Bringing ESPN GameDay into the equation brings the attention to a higher level. The tactic obviously worked for the Florida-Kentucky rivalry since Kentucky brought in its largest crowd ever for a basketball game.

There are certainly many other rivalry games in college basketball that did not take place last week. The idea of Rivalry Week is to bring attention to college basketball games - specifically in-conference games. The most-promoted event of college basketball is by far the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament often referred to as "March Madness." It's only February, and college basketball is craving attention. Very few games in the tournament will feature two teams from one conference. Rivalry Week, especially with the addition of ESPN College GameDay, is a fantastic approach to create media coverage of in-conference games. To see how other teams performed in their rivalry games, click here.