Dec. 3—MADISON, S.D. — A longstanding South Dakota college basketball rivalry could be at its end, according to Dakota State University men’s basketball head coach Kevin Williamson.Williamson is in his first season coaching the Trojans after one season coaching the Dakota Wesleyan University men’s program.The Trojans hosted their head coach’s former team in the annual Battle of the Blues game on Tuesday at the DSU Fieldhouse in Madison. Williamson and DSU defeated DWU 64-53, and the Trojan women also beat DWU 74-62.In a postgame interview with the Mitchell Republic, when asked about facing his old school and now coaching on both sides of the rivalry, Williamson said he thinks the series is over and accused DWU athletics officials of no longer wanting to schedule the game. The teams have played more than 180 times in their men’s basketball histories, meeting every year and sometimes twice a year for much of the past two decades.”It’s now over. I don’t know if you know that. Ross Cimpl and Jason Christensen no longer want to play us, and so the in-state rivalry is over,” Williamson said. “There’s no hiding it. They have avoided trying to play us. We have text messages of them running from playing us, and so it’s all over now, and that sucks.”Reached on Wednesday by the Mitchell Republic, Cimpl, who is DWU’s Athletic Director, responded to Williamson’s comments by saying that while future dates are not set, that doesn’t equate to the end of the rivalry series.”That’s never been a conversation that I’ve had,” Cimpl said. “I know that recently there’s been some back and forth about different dates, and the only answer that we’ve had is, ‘We need to look at our schedules and get things finalized.’ There’s never been anything that said, ‘We’re definitely not doing this.’ I guess sometimes no answer can be interpreted as a no, but I’ve never spoken to their AD (Bud Postma) about never playing again. That’s news to me.”According to the DWU record books, Tuesday marked the 183rd all-time meeting between DWU and DSU in men’s basketball, with the Tigers leading the series 147-36. The teams were rivals in the South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference for more than 70 years until 2000, when DWU left for the Great Plains Athletic Conference.”I used to coach football in this rivalry. I think both sides are very heated and excited in terms of wanting to win,” Cimpl said. “… To say there’s animosity, I’m not sure that’s the right word. There’s just a rivalry. I was upset when we lost, I was super excited when we won, and all those things in between. It was always a game that you looked forward to.”Tuesday’s games were the third in the series now known as “The Battle of the Blues,” which includes a traveling trophy awarded to the winning teams in each of the men’s and women’s contests. The Dakota State women have won all three matchups with the golden basketball trophy on the line, while the Trojans won the rights to the men’s trophy from DWU with Tuesday’s victory.”They didn’t bring the trophy, and that’s to be expected,” Williamson said. “I don’t have anything positive to say.”