BTI's Rants and Ramblings: The Rare UK Trip Out West

Kentucky will trek out west this week for a doubleheader of games against Utah and Ohio State.  And while we have become more and more accustomed to the travel that John Calipari has created in his scheduling, it is still rare for Kentucky to head west for many games.  In fact, under John Calipari, UK has played just 5 regular season games outside of the Eastern or Central Time Zones, and 3 of those came at the 2010 Maui Invitational, which he did not agree to play in and has since sworn off.  But this lack of travel extends beyond Calipari too.  Take a look at the total games played in the US’s four furthest time zones since 1990:

Mountain Time Zone (4-0)
2018 NCAA Tournament (Boise): Defeated Davidson and Buffalo
1997 NCAA Tournament (Salt Lake City): Defeated Montana and Iowa

Pacific Time Zone (6-3)
2017 CBS Sports Classic (Las Vegas): Defeated North Carolina
2015 (Los Angeles): Lost to UCLA
2008 Las Vegas Invitational: Defeated Kansas St. and West Virginia
2008 NCAA Tournament (Anaheim): Lost to Marquette
2003 John Wooden Classic (Anaheim): Defeated UCLA
1997 NCAA Tournament (San Jose): Defeated St. Joes and Utah
1994 John Wooden Classic (Anaheim): Lost to UCLA

Alaskan Time Zone (3-0)
1996 Great Alaskan Shootout: Defeated Syracuse, Alaska-Anchorage, Charleston

Hawaiian Time Zone (10-5)
2010 Maui Invitational: Defeated Oklahoma and Washington, Lost to UCONN
2006 Maui Invitational: Defeated Depaul, Lost to UCLA and Memphis
2002 Maui Invitational: Defeated Arizona St and Gonzaga, Lost to Virginia
1997 Maui Invitational: Defeated George Washington and Missouri, Lost to Arizona
1994 Maui Invitational: Defeated Texas, Ohio State, Arizona

Kentucky has just played 31 games in these 4 time zones in the past 30 seasons, and 15 of those came in Maui alone.  Removing the 7 NCAA Tournament games, which UK had no choice over, they have only scheduled 24 games in those time zones in the last 30 years and only one of them, at UCLA in 2015, was a true road game.  Now this is not a comment on the rightness or wrongness of that kind of scheduling because it would be silly of UK to schedule many games that far away from it’s fanbase.  But it is simply to point out that what we are seeing this week is actually pretty rare in UK land.  The Cats haven’t gone out west very many times and that segment of the country hasn’t had many opportunities to see the Cats in person.