You are looking live at the site of one-tenth of today’s Big 12/SEC SEC/Big 12 Challenge. If you look closely, you can see Mike Gansey, who has come to settle the debate about who would win a game between this team and the 2004-05 team. Either that, or he’s scouting for his team, which is the the world champion.

West Virginia is the host today, as is Oklahoma against Florida, Texas Tech against LSU, Oklahoma State against Arkansas and TCU against Auburn. Kansas plays at Kentucky, Kansas State plays at Tennessee, Texas plays at Georgia, Iowa State plays at Vanderbilt and Baylor plays at Mississippi.

This leads me to one of a few nits worth picking about this event. The first is the most obvious: The timing stinks, but it’s a made-for-TV event, and ESPN, if you believe the coaches, insisted on moving this to January and in the middle of conference play.

“I think it’s good for TV,” said Kansas coach Bill Self, whose team plays at No. 3 Kentucky. “There’s not one coach who’s playing Saturday out of the Big 12 or SEC who would say it’s a well-scheduled game — at least I don’t think so. I would bet Huggs probably feels the same way.

“The conference season trumps your non-conference season big-time. But we’re happy to go. We’re excited. We’ll go there and let it ride, but the bottom line is I think the only reason we’re doing it is for exposure for our respective leagues. I don’t think any coaches are very excited about it.”

Huggins doesn’t support the spot on the schedule and said it’s “ESPN driven — it wasn’t the coaches.” He said the coaches were talked into the change.

“The thought was it would get more media coverage at this time of the year than when we had it before conference play started, that maybe games like this get people thinking a little more about basketball earlier than maybe playing somebody else,” he said.

I get the idea. No more college football. The NFL is in an open weekend before the Super Bowl — and you’ll remember Sunday games during the open weekend were spots the Big East coveted. So there’s a place for this idea, but, honestly, there’s no way ESPN pulls that with the ACC, the Big Ten and their non-conference event. None.

Kansas v. Kentucky is the marquee matchup. Again. But suppose you’re Kansas. You just lost on the road, and you got back to campus at around 3 a.m. CST. Now you’re going east again to Rupp Arena to play Kentucky. And if you’re Kentucky, you just lost on the road against Tennessee and now you get Kansas. There is no Texas or LSU soft landing.

But consider this, too. The rest of the matchups are not great. WVU is 40 spots higher than Texas A&M, and that’s the fourth-largest RPI disparity. There are some OK matchups, but you do need to squint to see the beauty in Kansas State (No. 42 in the RPI) at Tennessee (No. 49), Iowa State (No. 40) at Vanderbilt (No. 62), Arkansas (No. 30) at Oklahoma State (No. 43) … and … sheesh … Auburn (No. 77) at TCU (No. 36). I know you can’t avoid some things — Who knew Texas would be this bad? South Carolina, No. 17 in the RPI, isn’t in the field this year because the SEC has 14 teams and 10 spots. — but that’s kind of the point. There’s not a lot of intrigue for this event because there are essentially no rivalries. If you’re a WVU fan, what reason do you have to get excited to learn about the SEC matchup? Missouri, LSU, Florida and Texas A&M?

Maybe next year! you reply.

OK. Who do you want? Because you’re not getting Kentucky. Alabama, Mississippi State and South Carolina have sat out three of the four Challenges! Mississippi State and South Carolina are, after Kentucky, among your elite SEC opponents. If we’re being honest, the SEC isn’t as deep as the Big 12, and Big 12 v. Big 12 is really about as good as it gets for college basketball in January. This event does belong in November or December.

But this spot seems to have some permanence — and that’s a big reason the Capital Classic is no more — so it needs a fix. There are no stakes. I mean, the coaches don’t really care about this event. It’s in need of something to spark interest. Why not give the winning conference the top billing in the name rather than alternating ever year? Or give the winning conference all the home games next season! Too much? Fine. Give the teams that win today home games next season. And if an SEC team wins and cycles out next season because of the 14-teams-10-spots thing, give the team that cycles in that available home game.

Sorry. I’ll quit. Who wants to talk about the press?