Mohegan — And so they have decided to renew women’s basketball’s best rivalry, the conflict upon which the game flourished, all the shapes and forms that still run like currents into our minds and memories.

The poohbahs announced Tuesday that UConn-Tennessee is back, beginning with a game in Connecticut during the 2019-2020 season.

And this just in: The game belongs at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Gasp! Not on campus? Not in downtown Hartford? Answers: no and no. Because much as we’d like to get romantic and rhapsodize about the rivalry’s renewal being “good for the game” and all the other bromides, the truth is a bit more practical.

It’s about the money.

It’s always about the money.

This just in: UConn needs the money now that its profits, once volcanic in the salad days of the Big East, have been reduced to a garden hose in the godforsaken American.

And what entity, aside from perhaps Don Corleone, is better equipped than Mohegan Sun to make UConn an offer it can’t refuse?

Sure, the XL Center can sell 6,000 more seats. But there is rent. Gampel’s seating capacity is about the same, but can’t match the amenities and indoor parking. Plus, wireless hasn’t worked at Gampel since roughly about the time the American League went to the DH.

“We’re in the business of having big events here,” Mitchell Etess, the man who brought the WNBA here, and who remains a Senior Advisor to the Tribal Council, said at Tuesday’s Sun-Dallas game. “That game is an instant sellout. UConn-Tennessee is like Yankees-Red Sox.”

Indeed. Plus, the Mohegans, flexing their monetary muscles to get the game here, would provide a perfect passive-aggressive answer to UConn’s snub of this corner of the world during its recent money grab/coaches tour of Glastonbury, Branford, Stamford and New York.

Oh, the irony in State U finding its salvation among the bumpkins.

And it’s not like Mohegan Sun isn’t versed in big events.

“At this point,” Etess said, “when you are thinking about our history, it’s much easier to make a list of who hasn’t played here than who has. We’ve had U2, Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake, Prince, Billy Joel, Elton John … the list goes on. And in terms of sports, this arena is synonymous with women’s basketball.”

The Mohegans, much like they do for the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s state high school basketball championships, could offer the building sans rent and save UConn from needing other staff. The game will be sold out, thus bringing 10,000 people to the property who will eat, drink, gamble and shop. Never forget the AAC Tournament from a few years ago when Ballo, the hip Italian eatery, did 1,034 dinners the day of the semifinals. That didn’t count the people who merely sat at the bar and partook of the euphoric nectar either.

C’mon. UConn-Tennessee here is a win-win-win-win.

It could be fun. The casino could outlaw the intake of anything orange on property that night. No screwdrivers or Bud Light Oranges at the gin mills. Make it a true home casino advantage.

Clearly, there would be hurdles here, most likely because there would be whiny Hartford people thinking it is God’s will to have such an event downtown. Maybe the students would be chafed at the thought of no Gampel and thus, no student section.

Let them harrumph. Methinks all UConn needs to hear is a big, fat monetary guarantee for a big event … in a building that’s had more big events in a year than Hartford’s had in a decade.

Sorry. This feels like a no brainer. Neon Uncasville has become the entertainment hub in Connecticut. Nobody does it better, as Carly Simon once advised us. And this will be a women’s basketball event, the renewal of the rivalry that began the sport’s revolution.

America’s Most Beloved Arena has been good enough for Springsteen, Bono and Billy Joel, among others. It’s surely good enough for UConn-Tennessee. Let’s do it.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro