Alabama Won’t Be a Part of the 2017 SEC/Big 12 Challenge

The fourth annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge Presented by Sonic will feature 10 games played on January 28, 2017, in a matchup of two premier college basketball conferences.

All 10 of the Big 12’s teams and 10 of the SEC’s 14 member institutions will participate in this year’s event. Each of the 10 SEC teams that participated in the 2016 Challenge are playing in the 2017 event.

Twelve participating teams earned postseason berths in 2016 and seven of the 10 games will feature at least one team that participated in the 2016 NCAA Tournament.

This will be the second year that a bye in the league schedule for participating teams was created to accommodate the single-day format. The four SEC teams not participating will play each other in conference games the same day. The first two years of the challenge were played over several days in November and December but the 2017 event will be consolidated to one single day in January.

Seven of the 10 games will be televised on ESPN or ESPN2, one game on ESPN2 or ESPNU and two games will air on ESPNU. All 10 games will also be available via WatchESPN. ESPN’s College GameDay Covered by State Farm – the Saturday roadshow that discusses the top storylines of the college basketball season – will originate from one of the Challenge games.

“The SEC/Big 12 Challenge is a unique opportunity to showcase our basketball programs. As evidenced this past season, playing the event on a single-date in January puts our programs in the college basketball spotlight,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said.

Start times and network designations will be announced at a later date.

SEC/Big 12 Challenge Presented by Sonic (January 28, 2017):

Texas at Georgia

Baylor at Ole Miss

Kansas at Kentucky

Texas A&M at West Virginia

Florida at Oklahoma

Iowa State at Vanderbilt

Kansas State at Tennessee

Arkansas at Oklahoma State

Auburn at TCU

LSU at Texas Tech