Conference games in the SEC get underway today, and Florida Basketball is opening conference play against Kentucky. It’s a top-ten matchup that always delivers fireworks, and most Gator fans have the Wildcats circled as one of the highlight games of the season every year.

But thanks to the expanded SEC and new scheduling protocols, fans better enjoy today’s game because there will not be a return matchup in Gainesville later this season.

Florida Basketball: The price of progress

Prior to this season, the SEC had been following the East/West division model for a number of sports. In basketball specifically, it meant that everyone in the East played each other in a home-and-home while playing everyone in the West just once, rotating each season home and away.

This meant that Florida and Kentucky always played each other twice, and all was well.

But now with Texas and Oklahoma pushing the conference to 16 teams, the SEC has done away with the division model and instead rolled out a schedule where teams will play everyone once, and will play just three teams twice.

In Florida’s case, they will play Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina twice, but it means there will be no home game this season against Kentucky.

SEC Associate Commissioner Garth Glissman took to X and touched upon the frustration Gator fans have with just one game against the Wildcats this season:

“We’ve heard from a few other Gator fans that we may have missed the mark with this season’s men’s basketball schedule given the significance of the Florida vs. Kentucky rivalry.

We’ll keep this in mind going forward. For context, Florida’s mandatory “two-play opponents” (determined by a league-wide vote when the SEC expanded to 16 schools) are Georgia and South Carolina, and Kentucky’s mandatory “two-play opponents” are Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

In a 16-school/18-game conference schedule, this gives the conference office the opportunity to select one discretionary “two-play opponent” each season. So, there isn’t much “inventory” to move around, but we’ll do our best to give SEC fans the matchups they want!”

Logically, do Florida’s “mandatory opponents” make sense in terms of geography? Sure.

But Gator fans are not sitting around each year going, “Man, I can’t wait to play Georgia and South Carolina in basketball.”

Different sports do have different rivalries. Georgia hasn’t been relevant in basketball in ages. South Carolina isn’t really a rival in basketball or football, but in baseball, it is a different story.

Unfortunately, much like the fact that the football rivalry against Tennessee is at risk due to the expanded SEC, matchups like today’s game on the hardwood against Kentucky are cast aside so Florida can travel to Missouri or Oklahoma for an annual matchup.

So enjoy today while is lasts, because it won’t come around for another year.