When it comes to blue-blood basketball, KU-Indiana should happen more

College basketball opens Friday not with a trickle of contests but with a cannonball splash. More than 160 games involving Division I men’s programs tip off, including most of the top 25.

The most intriguing matches No. 3 Kansas against 11th ranked Indiana in Honolulu (tipoff about 8:30 p.m. Central on ESPN).

The Final Four is the annual ambition for both programs. The Jayhawks and Hoosiers exist in the small circle of blue bloods with (my list) Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and UCLA.

Kansas has met all of those programs multiple times since its last game against Indiana, and to hear Jayhawks coach Bill Self, that should be remedied.

“I think Indiana should be a game, or is the type of game we should try to schedule every year,” Self said. “It’s a game that I think would be good for both universities moving forward, if they’re open to it. I don’t know what their interest level is on that, but I do think it would be a good game.”

When they’ve played, it has often carried historical significance, starting with the teams’ roles in saving the NCAA Tournament.

In 1939, the inaugural tournament nearly died on the vine from lack of interest and revenue.

Kansas coach Phog Allen guaranteed box office success if the event was brought to Kansas City and Municipal Auditorium, and he backed up his promise by guiding the Jayhawks to the 1940 title game.

Indiana was the opponent, and the Hoosiers ran away with a 60-42 victory.

The next meeting was in 1953, in the same building for the same stakes and with the tournament well established. KU was coming off the 1952 NCAA title led by Indiana native Clyde Lovellette, who at one time figured to become a Hoosier.

That sweetened the one-point victory for Indiana, sealed when a last-second baseline shot by the Jayhawks’ Jerry Alberts banged off the rim. Kansas lost despite a triple-double from center B.H. Born.

The Hoosiers swept a four-game series between the teams in the early 1970s, but when they became regular opponents again in the early 1990s, the advantage went to the Jayhawks and their young coach, Roy Williams.

In his first two seasons, Williams led KU to 49 victories but no NCAA success. That changed with a national title game appearance in 1991, and the first eyebrow-raising victory on that path came against Indiana.

About five minutes into the Sweet 16 game, the Jayhawks led 26-6 as officials stopped play to look at a problem with the floor. Bob Knight asked if the game could be restarted.

Two years later, the teams met with a Final Four berth on the line. Indiana was ranked No. 1 but didn’t have injured big man Alan Henderson and lost.

By then, the teams had started another four-game series and KU won three of them, including one of the great finishes at Allen Fieldhouse, a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Jacques Vaughn in 1993. That gave KU three victories over Indiana in 12  1/2 months.

Williams went 5-1 in games against Knight in that short span and that success helped established the coach who was largely unknown when he was hired.

The teams played in 1995 at Kemper Arena and not since. The Jayhawks regularly meet Duke and Kentucky in the Champions Classic — or the Wildcats in the Big 12/SEC Challenge — and seem to find North Carolina often in the NCAA Tournament and UCLA in regular-season tournaments.

But Kansas and Indiana don’t play often enough. College basketball would benefit if they wound up on each other’s schedule.

This story was originally published November 10, 2016 at 3:41 PM with the headline "When it comes to blue-blood basketball, KU-Indiana should happen more."