Negotiations for Indiana-Kentucky basketball game

Indiana athletic director Fred Glass recently made one more attempt to keep the IU-Kentucky basketball series alive. Kentucky's response: Not interested. A few weeks after it appeared the annual Indiana-Kentucky series had ended because IU wanted to play the games on campus and Kentucky preferred neutral venues, Glass offered Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart a compromise. Play the game in 2012 and '13 at Lucas Oil Stadium per Kentucky coach John Calipari's wishes, then Rupp Arena in '14 and Assembly Hall in '15. But Kentucky basically said it was interested in the first two games but not the campus dates. "(Coach) Tom (Crean) and I had continued to talk after the thing had blew up in early May as to whether there was a way to save the series and at the same time keep our value of having a game at Assembly Hall,'' Glass said. "That's when we came up with the idea of going to a four-year rotation. Those ideas had come to us from random people writing in and people I know suggesting that. '' Glass and Barnhart had conversations on May 10 and 21, the second including administrators responsible for scheduling. Kentucky, however, had already filled Dec. 5 and 8, the week the game has traditionally been played. Indiana offered to pay half of a $100,000 buyout to Portland to open Dec. 8 and also suggested Dec. 22 as a possibility. On May 24, however, IU received a call from Kentucky saying that it would be interested in the two neutral site games but would not commit to a contract longer than two years "to maintain the current flexibility of our future scheduling," according to a release from Barnhart. Glass wrote Barnhart a letter the next day expressing his disappointment that nothing could be resolved. "I think a lot of people for a lot of good reasons said, 'Why can't cooler heads prevail and people of goodwill get themselves in a room and work this thing out?''' Glass said. "I heard that and I thought maybe this was kind of like the Indiana General Assembly where sometimes things tend to blow up before you get back together and work things out. "But it doesn't appear they have any interest in our compromise.'' Barnhart's statement also said a four-year contract with IU would require ending the Wildcats' home-and-home series with Louisville "in order to keep our non-conference road schedule balanced." Kentucky, however, has held an opening in its schedule to allow it to play a neutral site game with Indiana on Dec. 15 or 22. Barnhart's statement also mention the possibility of a multi-team event in Indianapolis in December 2013 while "continuing discussions about a future home-and-home series." From/cbsnews