This is an opinion column.
Today, we’re standing on hallowed ground.
It’s like Greg Sankey stole Tobacco Road and hauled it west because the SEC — and the state of Alabama specifically — is suddenly the gravitational center of college basketball.
As planets parade, the stars align for something that reads like sci-fi fantasy.
As if the anomaly of an Alabama-Auburn split No. 1 ranking wasn’t enough when the polls dropped Monday, this glitch in the Matrix occurred the same week they play.
It will be No. 1 Auburn at No. 1 Alabama at 3 p.m. CT Saturday in Coleman Coliseum.
Uno y Uno.
Unus et Unus
This is far cooler than a clean No. 1 versus No. 2 meeting that felt like a longshot Saturday, especially after top-ranked Auburn took a healthy beating from Florida, before No. 2 Duke lost at Clemson and No. 3 Alabama beat Arkansas.
Yet, here we are with the Tigers atop the AP poll and the Crimson Tide pacing the coaches’ ballots.
Truly incredible in so many ways.
Forget the infrequency of these two basketball programs standing in either penthouse alone, but to do it on the same week is something to treasure.
It also begged the question: Has there ever been a 1v1 meeting before?
Turns out, yes. At least one.
And it was insane.
AP No. 1 Kansas beat Coaches No. 1 Oklahoma, 109-106. In three overtimes.
Imagine these two peeling the paint from the walls of Coleman for 55 minutes. It could open some portal to another level of sporting consciousness for this state.
On the same day ESPN’s College GameDay broadcasts live from Tuscaloosa — a few weeks after it did the same in Auburn, it’s time to honor this sport and its rivalry with something new.
Something all its own.
It’s overdue and we can do this together.
For too long, this has been unofficially (and to some, offensively) called the Iron Bowl of Basketball.
Some shortened it to the IBOB. Others pronounced the acronym EYE-BOB.
It’s wrong. This must be stopped.
These creatively-challenged titles are a reminder of a time when basketball was a sidecar companion for the football rivalry. That game earned the Iron Bowl moniker in 1964, with Tiger coach Ralph Jordan credited as coining what’s now part of this state’s vocabulary.
While recognizing not every game or entity deserves its own branding or nickname, the only way to kill the IBOB is to replace it with something better.
It’s time for the Alabama-Auburn basketball rivalry to gain some agency — no longer the forgotten stepbrother of the family showoff football game.
If we’re in the business of renaming gulfs, why can’t we do a basketball game?
I brainstormed a few candidates, but I welcome your submissions. Email me your thoughts, but first, a few from this ball knower.
