From Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com: “It’s a pretty obvious thing to say, isn’t it? That a Champions Classic game between two of the best four teams in the country — a burly, veteran Michigan State team on the one hand, and a so-talented-I’m-already-running-out-of-adjectives Kentucky on the other hand — is going to be good does not require the powers of prognostication. We don’t need to get Miss Cleo on the line. In any other week of November and December, that would be thegame; we’re lucky enough that it will come on the same night, and in the same building, as Duke-Kansas.
But just in case you needed additional proof — I don’t think anyone currently reading fits this characterization, but hey, sometimes you have to take the segue where you can — Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and Kentucky coach John Calipari (OK, mostly Calipari) have been happily providing it for days.
It all began back on Sept. 27, at Michigan State’s Midnight Madness event, when students in attendance tweeted a choice fire ’em up line from Izzo about the team’s practices to date: “We’re working to kick Kentucky’s [butt].”