Almost immediately — no, just make that immediately — after UK and North Carolina finished playing each other, almost everyone — no, just make that everyone — was clamoring for a rematch.

That game was one of the best college basketball has ever witnessed. An NBA scout told NBA.com’s Adam Zagoria it was the highest-quality game he’s seen in his 25 years. So, of course, who doesn’t want that again in March, when it really, really matters?

“Let’s hope if we have to play them again,” UK head coach John Calipari said, “it is the very last game of the season, for both teams, in one place.”

It would be a fitting end to a season if it happened. The two teams heralded as the clear-cut best two coming into the season fulfilling their promise. Will it happen? The NCAA Tournament is a fickle thing. But if the teams are as good as they looked Saturday, it’s a strong possibility.

“We hope to be there toward the end of the season in the tournament,” senior Darius Miller said, “and we’re pretty sure they will be.”

But the UK-North Carolina matchup goes beyond this year and this season. It’s a natural big-time game. The all-time winningest program against the team with the third-most wins in history.

“It’s always a big deal with North Carolina,” freshman Michael Kidd-Gilchrist said.

That big deal is in jeopardy.

The series could be cut. The contract between the two expires after this year.

The teams have existed without each other before. For 10 years, between 1990 and 2000, the blue bloods never played except one time, in an NCAA Tournament game.

But man, thinking about a year without a game like the one that happened Saturday isn’t a good thought.

It’s not that either coach has lost interest. It’s that the environment is changing enough to potentially force the Cats and Tar Heels to cancel their annual clash.

The primary culprit would be increased conference schedules. The SEC is expanding, adding two schools next year, and talks are scheduled for the spring that would add two games to the conference slate. The ACC is expanding, too, and might be looking at upping its conference games as well.

Calipari doesn’t want to over-schedule his perennially young team and put his program at risk. Neither does North Carolina head coach Roy Williams, who acknowledged the realities of the “changing college landscape” could hinder the practicality of playing a game as tough as this one.

“Am I interested in continuing to play Kentucky? Yes,” Williams said. “Am I interested in making a concrete statement up here? John and I should have an opportunity to talk about that and see what else we have on the schedule.”

Unfortunately for fans of basketball, they might not have each other on that schedule anymore.

It’s not that the fans don’t want to see it. When Calipari asked which among North Carolina, Louisville or Indiana should be canceled, the Hoosiers were voted off the hypothetical schedule. But Calipari also said the vote wouldn’t matter.

“Regardless of what the Kentucky fans say about who they’d like to get rid of, we have a say in this thing too,” Williams said.

The players want to see it, too. They live for games like this, where the fans are buzzing start to finish and the emotions after the game are naturally heightened.

“Of course we should keep playing,” Kidd-Gilchrist said. “That’s a rivalry right here. Like, you’d say it’s a rivalry now, right? We’re the real blue, though.”

But fans don’t get a say in it. Calipari even said so. And players don’t, either.  It’s not like they have to worry about the practicality of scheduling or long-term ramifications past a maximum of four years.

So it’s the coaches who matter, and those coaches are getting pinned in by growing conference schedules.

Which means we get to see less of the games with that something extra, like UK and North Carolina.