Florida-Kansas rematch set for Dec. 5 in Allen Fieldhouse

Gators beat Jayhawks in Gainesville last December

Kansas forward Perry Ellis is caught behind Florida forward Will Yeguete as he heads to the bucket during the first half on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013 at O'Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida.

Kansas University’s basketball team will meet Florida for the second straight season in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, the conferences announced Wednesday. The Jayhawks will host the Gators on Dec. 5 in Allen Fieldhouse, a year after Florida stopped KU, 67-61, at the O’Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida.

Florida has been ranked eighth and KU ninth nationally in ESPN.com’s first preseason poll for the 2013-14 season.

The Gators, who have won two and lost three all-time versus KU, lose four senior starters off last year’s Final Four team, including Scottie Wilbekin, Casey Prather and Patric Young. The team returns sophomore Chris Walker, who is expected to be one of the top players in the country, plus Kasey Hill, Michael Frazier II and Dorian Finney-Smith. Also joining the program is Devin Robinson, a 6-8 forward who is ranked No. 20 nationally in the recruiting Class of 2014 by Rivals.com.

“We are fine with that (playing Florida in consecutive seasons). It’s a great game for our fans. They’re going to be ranked in the Top 10 again,” said KU schedule maker Larry Keating, special assistant to the athletic director.

“They try to match strength against strength. We couldn’t play Kentucky. We play them in Indy (Nov. 18, Champions Classic). Florida is projected as next best. We didn’t take part in the selection process,” he added. “TV (ESPN) makes the selections. TV is looking for matchups.”

Also in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, Kansas State will play Tennessee on Dec. 6 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Last year, KSU beat Ole Miss in Manhattan. Missouri will travel to Oklahoma on Dec. 5. Last year, MU beat West Virginia at Mizzou. The Big 12 went 7-3 in the Challenge a year ago.

“The Big 12 was thrilled with the success of the Challenge last season,” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. “We are equally excited about this year’s games that will continue to add quality opponents to our strong nonconference schedules as we look to defend our performance as the nation’s No. 1 conference.”

Here’s the Challenge schedule:

2014 SEC / BIG 12 CHALLENGE

Wednesday, December 3

Auburn at Texas Tech

Thursday, December 4

Arkansas at Iowa State

Baylor at Vanderbilt

LSU at West Virginia

TCU at Mississippi

Friday, December 5

Florida at Kansas

Missouri at Oklahoma

Texas at Kentucky

Saturday, December 6

Kansas State at Tennessee

Oklahoma State at South Carolina

KU coach Bill Self is in favor of the Challenge, which will continue at least through 2016-17.

“It forces you to improve scheduling. It gives you an opportunity to get a great nonconference win,” Self said last season.

Of playing Florida, he said after last year’s game: “We’re happy playing Florida. I’m sure they’re happy playing us. I think they try to pair teams where preseason expectations are supposed to be.”

KU likes the fact all games are staged over a four-day span, with ESPN providing coverage of all 10 games.

“They (Big 12 officials) told us to hold those dates. The reason we didn’t do it last year is there wasn’t enough notice. They said they wanted Thursday-Saturday for the Challenge,” Keating said.

The Jayhawks will also play in the Old Spice Classic from Nov. 27-30 in Orlando, Florida. Other teams in the field: SEC squad Tennessee, plus Marquette, Georgia Tech, Rhode Island, Rider, Michigan State and Santa Clara. KU will play Utah in Sprint Center on Dec. 13 and play host to UNLV in Allen. KU will travel to Temple (Wells-Fargo Arena, home of Philadelphia 76ers) and Georgetown (Verizon Center, home of Washington Wizards).

Academics: KU is one of 40 Div. I men’s basketball programs and one of six Div. I women’s volleyball programs given Public Recognition Awards for achieving Academic Progress Rate (APR) success in the top 10 percent of its respective sports, the NCAA announced Wednesday.

It’s KU’s seventh-straight recognition award under Self, a number matched by 12 other Div. I programs. Aside from KU, the Big 12 has had nine recognitions over the last nine years.

KU basketball’s run of seven APR Public Recognition Awards matches BYU, Brown, Columbia, Elon, Princeton, Navy and Notre Dame. Penn and Bucknell have been recognized eight straight years and Belmont, Holy Cross, Davidson and Bucknell nine straight years.

The APR provides a look at a team’s academic success each semester by tracking academic progress of each athlete on scholarship. APRs for all teams, including access to postseason play and penalties for low-performing teams, will be released May 14. KU says the four-year APR scores of all of KU’s 18 sports programs are expected to register above the requisite score of 930 established by the NCAA for good standing.

Pinkel speaks out: Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel was again asked about MU playing KU during a Google Hangout on GaryPinkel.com Wednesday. The SEC has mandated each team play at least one opponent from another power conference starting in 2016.

“We want to play Kansas again. It was a great rivalry we had all those years,” Pinkel said, as reported by the Columbia Tribune. “It’s been an open invitation. There’s some pouting going on still. It’s unfortunate, but it will happen again someday. It will. It would be great for our fans. In every sport, it would be good. We’ll see what happens.”

Missouri AD Mike Alden said on April 2 as reported by the Tribune: “We said we wanted to be able to play. We continue to say that. But at some point, we’ve got to keep moving forward, which is what we’re doing. Our hope, someday, is that the University of Kansas — which we have a large regard for — is going to say, ‘Let’s go ahead and play again.’ They know we’d love to be able to do it. Hopefully it’ll happen. We’ve reached out and we continue to reach out to them to hopefully make that happen.”

KU AD Sheahon Zenger and basketball coach Bill Self have said repeatedly there are no plans to schedule Missouri, which left the Big 12 for the SEC.

Foreign player on radar: KU, which has one scholarship to give in recruiting, is reportedly recruiting Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, a 6-foot-6, 190-pound wing from Cherkassy, Ukraine, who turns 17 in June. He has been compared to NBA player Manu Ginobili.

Other schools reportedly involved include SMU, Virginia, Oregon and Michigan.

He averaged 25.2 points, 8.0 boards and 3.4 assists for the Ukrainian National Team in the 2013 FIBA Europe Under 16 championships. He scored two points off 1-of-4 shooting (0-3 from three) with two turnovers and a steal while playing 13 minutes in the World Select Team’s loss to Team USA at the Nike Hoops Summit on April 12 in Portland.

KU’s Kelly Oubre and Cliff Alexander had 14 and six points respectively for the U.S. At the Summit, Mykhailiuk told draftexpress.com he was trying to decide whether to attend a U.S. college or sign with a European pro team.

“He is the best prospect in Europe in a long time, probably since Ricky Rubio,” writes nbadraft.net. “What Mykhaliuk showed at the recent U16 European championships was a mix of athleticism, skills and feel for the game that is extremely rare to see in a European player, or any player of his age, for that matter.”

Draftexpress.com writes, “the Ukrainian shooting guard (at Hoops Summit practices) showed intriguing athleticism and the ability to create space or find the open man off the dribble. Throwing a number of terrific passes and knocking down a step-back 18-footer isolated on the wing in the clutch, he’s stood out on the few chances he’s had to make an impression. Competing regularly against older players may become the norm for Mykhailiuk who has had a number of college teams come out to the Ukraine to recruit him. The son of a professor, he attends a multi-lingual school in the Ukraine, speaks very good English, and is in position to potentially commit to and attend an NCAA institution starting this fall even though he’d only be 17 years old for the duration of his freshman year, making him one of the youngest players in college basketball history. The target of a number of top-level Euroleague teams as well, Mykhailiuk is one of the more intriguing 1997-born prospects outside of the United States.”

Self camp: Space is available for 2014 Individual Bill Self Basketball Camps, with Session One from June 8-12 and Session Two from June 15-19. For information go to billselfbasketballcamp.com