Indiana, Louisville series likely on back-burner until 2016-17

If you were looking forward to a Indiana-Louisville matchup in Lucas Oil Stadium next season, you're probably going to be disappointed. A source close to the Louisville program tells the Courier-Journal that the much-discussed Indiana-Louisville series likely won't be happening this season.

After the temporary death-knell was given to the Indiana-Kentucky series, both Rick Pitino and Tom Crean (moreso Pitino) had discussed the possibility of an annual Cards-Hoosiers matchup. One of the initial draws of the series was to have the games rotate between Indianapolis, Louisville, and Bloomington. Pitino had mentioned after the two programs played last December in the Jimmy V Classic that there is a draw to Lucas Oil Stadium because of the possibility of breaking the regular-season single-game attendance record.

"What I suggested to Tom was we go to Lucas Oil Stadium for two years and we try to break the attendance record, you know, we try to get 80,000. Each team gets 40,000 and whoever can't sell the 40 returns them. I'm pretty sure we can bring 40; I'm pretty sure they can bring 40."

"We've got great respect for IU, I have a lot of close friends in their administration, and we'd love to play them. I don't think he wants anymore home-and-home and we probably don't want anymore home-and-homes. We'd like to play in Lucas Oil and get 60,000 or 80,000 people, and I hope we can do it."

Fred Glass had told the Indianapolis Star two weeks ago that the two schools were in serious talks about the game, but those now seem to be halted -- for now. The change comes on on the heels of ESPN announcing this year's ACC-Big Ten Challenge matchups, where both teams will face significant non-conference road tests. Indiana will travel to Duke, while Louisville will visit East Lansing to play Michigan State.

What do you think? Would a Louisville-Indiana matchup be too much for both teams this season?