Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski told Lafayette Journal and Courier reporter Mike Carmin that the Crossroads Classic will not continue beyond this year according to a report by Carmin.
The annual event held in mid-December at Bankers Life Fieldhouse includes Indiana, Purdue, Butler and Notre Dame. Indiana and Purdue never play each other at the event because they are conference foes, but they flip opponents each year. Bobinski told Carmin that two teams chose to opt out and strongly implied that those two teams were Indiana and Notre Dame.
An Indiana spokesman did not have an immediate response when contacted by the Daily Hoosier about the report Tuesday afternoon and did not confirm or deny the accuracy of Bobinski’s statements. However, the spokesman noted that Indiana has played in Indianapolis every year since 1983 and before that since 1978, that Indiana passed on an opportunity to play in the CBS Classic several years ago in order to stay in the Crossroads, and that leaving would open the door for Indiana to play Butler in the Gavitt Games and Notre Dame in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
Indiana has a 7-3 record at the Crossroads Classic and has won four straight games in the event. Theirs is the best record in the event.
The writing has been on the wall for a while that the Crossroads Classic could be nearing its end.
In December prior to Indiana’s meeting with Butler at the event, then head coach Archie Miller hinted that conference scheduling was one factor that made the Crossroads less attractive.
“With the leagues around America, in particular the ACC and the Big Ten going to 20 (conference games), there’s been some real discussion that the Crossroads could be something that’s very hard to pull off,” Miller said.
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