Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

With an influx of teams I'm wondering who each of the current and new schools see as their primary rivals. I think St. John's has always had great rivalries with Syracuse and Georgetown, so from a conference standpoint only the Hoyas remain. I don't think any of the new additions will cause our fan base to get overly excited when they come to the Garden, but who do Butler, Xavier, Creighton, Richmond forsee as the teams they most look forward to playing??

I think that Creighton fans would probably look to Marquette and St Louis, if they are added, as rivals. There are many families in the midwest that have one child at Creighton and another child at one of those other Jesuit schools.

If Dayton were not to get in, but Creighton did, Xavier would be another potential rival. It seemed like Creighton and Xavier played each other regularly for several years until Sean Miller wouldn't renew the series.

For Georgetown our big 3 rivals were Cuse, Nova, and St. John's. Going forward I expect it will be Nova, St. John's and Marquette.

If somehow Gonzaga makes the league I think a good rivalry would start there. Two Jesuit universities who call themselves GU and use a bulldog mascot fighting for basketball dominance.

For Xavier it would be Dayton if they get in. If not, probably Butler, but maybe either St. Louis or Creighton.

Butler vs Xavier has always been "chippy"
Butler vs Georgetown could be cool with 4 bulldogs running around.
Other than that, Butler really doesn't have much ties with these schools...or the A-10, really.

Currently, our biggest rivals are Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame, Ball State. I wouldn't consider anyone else a "rival" at this point. However, everyone we play thinks of us as a rival. I guess that's what happens when you get to the level the Dawgs have been at the last 20 years.

As XU95 said, Dayton has historically been Xavier's A-10 rivalry. Ironically, UC has been Xavier's biggest out of conference rivalry, and Xavier fans have had to endure how great the big east has been from our UC friends and neighbors, and now the schools appear to be headed in different directions.

Interestingly, Jay Wright stopped by the Cintas Center yesterday (Xavier's basketball arena) when Villanova was in town yesterday playing UC:

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2013 ... as-center/

Before Villanova played UC tonight at Fifth Third Arena, head coach Jay Wright and an assistant stopped by Cintas Center to check out out the Musketeers’ digs. He chatted casually (and quickly) with some hoops staffers about the landscape of college basketball and toured the facility. Villanova, of course, is part of the Catholic Seven splitting from the Big East. And Xavier is one of the schools rumored to be on the new conference’s short list. Hmm…checking out a potential future conference mate?

Well UR's greatest rival today is VCU. I cannot imagine both of the Richmond schools would get into the new C7, so I think UR would look for a new rivalry with Georgetown, due to proximity and similar academic focuses. Also Villanova is a bit of a football rival currently, so I could see that expanding, and we also have lots of kids applying to both schools currently. Xavier has been a fun and chippy rival in the A10, so if we came over to the C7 together, I could see that growing as well.

Well, realignment has been pretty harsh to Marquette as far as rivals are concerned. We're losing our biggest in Louisville, as well as one that has taken off in Pitt. On top of that we're losing two next step down rivalries in Cincy and Notre Dame. DePaul is a traditional rival we get to keep, but it never even felt like one to me in the C-USA days, much less now. At the moment, the only strong rivalry we really know we can look forward to every year is Wisconsin. I have no idea what will come in the new conference, hopefully something takes off. For now I just hope we get Louisville and one more as regulars on the OOC slate. At least Brey has spoken about keeping Marquette on the schedule.

xu95 wrote:For Xavier it would be Dayton if they get in. If not, probably Butler, but maybe either St. Louis or Creighton.

Xavier/SLU games have never felt like much of a rivalry. It's good natured back and forth.

Saint Louis will have a lot of rivals, because a lot of people seem to not want to have anything to do with them.

I would say for Providence, UConn has been one of the bigger in conference rivalries. I could see a rivalry with SJU start to heat up after they scooped up a few players that Coach Cooley was working really hard on.