Prior to the “dream game” in 83’, I never saw them as a rival. I was actually semi happy for them in 1980. Indiana was the team to hate, and the Hoosiers earned every bit of that hate. Losing to UL in 83’ was an annoyance amplified by what was at stake. By 86’ the annoyance had turned to hate. We were better than them in 86’, but got stuck having to play a team we had beat 3 times already that year. LSU joined Duke, UL& KU. I actually rooted for Duke against UL.
Eventually, IU became irrelevant. UL became more detestable. The past couple of years, UL has been so bad— they seemed irrelevant, but because of our own issues under Cal failing to advance in March, it’s been hard to get any joy from how bad UL sucks. Now we are in a new era. There are going to be plenty of villains in our conference. UL doesn’t seem like a threat in basketball. There are several very real threats in the SEC.