Back in 2007, Michigan hired new football and basketball coaches, and both of them came from West Virginia University. First, John Beilein was hired away from West Virginia to replace Tommy Amaker, who was fired by the Wolverines. Later in the year, after Lloyd Carr announced his retirement, Michigan looked to West Virginia again when it hired Rich Rodriguez as its new football coach. The two moves combined with the messy divorce between Rodriguez and West Virginia created a lot of bad blood between the two fan bases despite the schools not meeting in either sport.
↵Now the Wolverines and Mountaineers will actually meet in one of those sports. According to CBS Sports and the New York Post, Michigan will take on West Virginia in basketball at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Dec. 15, 2012. The game will apparently be played as part of the Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival, which will also feature a matchup between Fordham and Princeton.
↵The Barclays Center is a new arena in Brooklyn that is set to open later this year. Several college basketball games are being lined up for the arena next season, and if these reports are true, one of them will feature the very intriguing storyline of Beilein taking on his former school.