The Big 12 will announce Thursday it is partnering with Rucker Park to launch a series of youth clinics featuring its head basketball coaches in Harlem this summer and hopes to host exhibition games on the famed playground court in 2024, a conference source told The Athletic.
The conference is aiming to host men’s and women’s exhibition games at Rucker Park in the summer of 2024, pending approval from the NCAA. The Big 12 will send men’s and women’s basketball coaches to New York City to lead the clinics for local sixth graders and younger this summer.
The conference will make the announcement in advance of Kansas State taking on Michigan State at Madison Square Garden in New York on Thursday for a spot in the Elite Eight. The Wildcats have four New York City natives on their team, led by point guard Markquis Nowell and forward Nae’Qwan Tomlin.
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who was CEO of the Brooklyn Nets from 2005 to 2019, is partnering with NYC Parks on the program. Yormark has said he’s determined to grow his league’s footprint to become a more national conference and embrace its status as arguably the top college basketball conference in the country.
“The strength of this conference in basketball, I think, is unrivaled,” Yormark said earlier this…
