The six-year agreement between the men’s basketball programs at the University of Missouri and University of Kansas has remained in place during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but scheduling challenges have postponed the renewal of the rivalry for one year.
MU and KU were scheduled to meet on December 12, 2020 at the T-Mobile Center in downtown Kansas City, but the schools have announced that game has been moved to the 2026-2027 season. The Kansas City Star first reported the news.
The six-year agreement, that includes two games at Mizzou Arena, two games at Allen Fieldhouse, and two games at T-Mobile Center, was announced in October 2019, after one of the oldest and fiercest matchups in the country was paused for eight years, in the wake of Missouri’s decision to leave the Big 12 and join the Southeastern Conference in 2012, leaving sore feelings for the remaining eight members in the league, with those feelings strongest in Lawrence, where KU has been in a decades-long battle to control the nearby Kansas City metropolitan area, a region split in half by a state line that has traditionally split not only states, but allegiances between Crimson and Blue and Black and Gold.
With the 2020 game moved, the renewal of the rivalry will now occur at Phog Allen Fieldhouse on the KU campus in Lawrence in the 2021-22 season, future matchups will be at Mizzou Arena for 2022-23, Allen Fieldhouse for 2023-24, back to Columbia for 2024-2025, and back-to-back seasons in Kansas City, for 2025-26 and 2026-27.
The teams did play a charity exhibition game in November 2017 in Kansas City, and, perhaps as a note that feelings remain strong on both sides of the border for this rivalry, the contest sold out, with a postseason atmosphere for a game that had no bearing on the regular season for both squads.
