Keep playing EKU or not? For Morehead St. and Murray St., that is now the question.

When league charter-member Eastern Kentucky University exits the Ohio Valley Conference at the end of June, Morehead State’s Preston Spradlin figures no one will face a bigger adjustment moving forward than he.

Historically, EKU and Morehead have been OVC “travel partners.” As a result, the Eagles’ and Colonels’ men’s basketball teams have alternated playing the same opponents for Thursday/Saturday conference games for years.

For Spradlin, that means that in his seven seasons coaching basketball at Morehead — two as an assistant, the past five as head coach — “I have watched Eastern Kentucky play on film every Friday in January and February for the last seven years,” he says. “Not having Eastern in the OVC will definitely be different.”

As EKU prepares to begin competing in the ASUN Conference starting in 2021-22, one lingering question is what will happen to the Colonels’ long-standing rivalries with intrastate foes Morehead State and Murray State now that Eastern will no longer be in the same league with the Eagles and Racers?

When Eastern Kentucky announced its departure from the OVC this past winter, EKU Athletics Director Matt Roan said he saw no reason why the Colonels could not continue to play their historic rivals.

“I don’t think there is anything exclusive about us maintaining those rivalries and us joining the ASUN,” Roan said. “I think those things can be integrated. We can continue to have historical rivals come here and go on the road and play at their places.”

If you have watched conference realignment play out around college sports in the 21st century, however, you have observed that league jumping has left ill feelings that have interrupted other historic rivalries.

When Missouri bolted from the Big 12 to the SEC beginning with the 2012 football season, the Tigers’ ancient border rivalry with Kansas ceased.

The Jayhawks and Tigers have only recently agreed to resume playing, with home-and-home football games scheduled between the two in 2025 and 2026, then again in 2031 and 2032.

Since Texas A&M exited the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012, heated rival Texas has refused to schedule the Aggies. Future Longhorns football schedules include games with Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Georgia and Florida — but not Texas A&M.

Here in the commonwealth, there does not appear to be a similar level of hard feelings over EKU’s departure from the OVC. The athletics directors at both Morehead State and Murray State say those schools are open to continuing to play Eastern Kentucky as a non-conference foe.

Keeping the Morehead-EKU sports rivalry “is, I think, something that both our administrations are committed to,” Morehead State AD Jaime Gordon said. “There is a great relationship and tradition there. Even though we won’t be playing in the same conference anymore, (the rivalry) is something we want to make sure we continue to nurture.”

Murray State Athletics Director Kevin Saal says “my perspective on non-conference scheduling in any sport is that if it is mutually beneficial, we are interested in doing it.”

From the Murray perspective, would continuing to play Eastern but as non-league opponents meet that “mutually beneficial” standard?

“I think it could, absolutely,” Saal said.

Geographic considerations would seem to make the continuation of EKU-Morehead far easier to achieve than Eastern-Murray.

The campuses of Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State are separated by 66.7 miles, a one hour and nine-minute trip.

Conversely, it is 295 miles from EKU to Murray State, a four hour, 21-minute drive one way.

“I think anytime you have somebody close and regional, you want to protect that tradition,” says Gordon, the Morehead AD. “We’ve been able to do that with (nearby) Marshall.”

Those with historical memory of Kentucky college athletics have seen how even the fiercest of rivalries can be sabotaged by a conference change.

In the 1970s, the annual battles between Eastern Kentucky and Western Kentucky formed the most intense and entertaining college sports rivalry in the commonwealth.

However, after WKU left the OVC in 1982, Western-Eastern has never been the same.

Another complicating factor is that, as non-league rivals, scheduling can become a complex challenge.

Even with what appears to be a full commitment on the parts of the administrations at Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky to continue to play, Spradlin says the men’s basketball rivalry between the Eagles and Colonels may not occur in 2021-22.

That owes, in part, to the coronavirus-caused compression of men’s basketball schedules this past season. The reduction in games played has left schools with carry-over contractual obligations to play non-league contests that were canceled in 2020-21.

Says Spradlin: “(Eastern Coach A.W. Hamilton) and I both just have so many moving parts to our schedules — and other parts that we are obligated to (do). I think we will play (Eastern) in the future. I can’t guarantee it is going to happen this year.”

Nevertheless, Spradlin says he is optimistic long-term that playing one Morehead State-Eastern Kentucky basketball game a year rather than meeting two, even three times, a season as league rivals could produce a positive impact on the rivalry.

“It’s going to make those bragging rights a little more worthwhile if you get a whole year to brag about a win as opposed to a couple of weeks,” Spradlin said.