Kansas University and Michigan State were supposed to begin a home-and-home men’s basketball series this year.

Oops … the series will now be pushed back a year, because the Spartans have agreed to become the fourth team in the upcoming Guardians Classic.

KU, Southwest Missouri State, South Carolina and Michigan State are the four host schools for the four 4-team Guardians Classic regional tournaments next Nov. 17-18; the semifinals and finals will be Nov. 24-25 at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo.

KU and Michigan State don’t want to play each other twice in the same season — a possible meeting in the Guardians would conflict with a date at Allen Fieldhouse — so the KU-MSU series will begin at KU in 2004-05.

“At this point it appears Michigan State will be the fourth host school (for Classic), thus we’ll push back our home-and-home a year and ESPN will now be working to help us find another game to replace the Michigan State date at Allen Fieldhouse,” KU senior associate athletic director Richard Konzem said.

“What’s amazing if we play Michigan State it will be on Nov. 25 in the finals of the Guardians Classic, which is the same date we had the game scheduled for Allen Fieldhouse.”

Everything could change again, because the NCAA is trying to force a stay in this week’s decision to rescind the rule that prohibited teams from playing in more than two exempt events every four years.

KU would be unable to play in the Guardians Classic had a judge in Columbus, Ohio, not wiped out the rule this week.

“It that happens, everything would get undone again,” Konzem said of a stay.