Pick your school's new Big East rival

[nathanhm]

Hoya fan here:

Here is how I see our rivals in the new Big East

1a Villanova
1b St. John's
2 Marquette

then everyone else. I think there is potential for a Georgetown / Xavier rivalry down the road.

[Xudash]

This is why I hope we stay at 10. With that number, rivalries will develop much more quickly. A round robin schedule allows rivalries to move faster.

+1

Your post warrants repeating. There is no reason why this conference's programs cannot remain strong almost across the board. If they remain sufficiently strong across the board, then this round robin format is going to spin-up some intense, valuable television content.

As for my opinion on Xavier's new Big East rivals:

1. It starts with Butler, because we've had recent experience with Butler.
2. As time moves forward, it's going to gravitate to Nova, Georgetown and Marquette.
3. I see those three becoming primary rivals, wherein a game against any one of them will be almost as hard a ticket to obtain for a Cintas Center game as our rivalry game with UC (assuming everyone is let out of their 'timeout' and the game returns to the campuses).

That's the beauty of this conference; I don't believe the answer has to hold to just one program. This conference can produce night in and night out pandemonium.

I love this board right now. It's like a bunch of knights sitting around a large oak table in a castle, drinking and sharing dialogue and enjoying each other's company before they all go outside and beat the crap out of each other in jousting matches.

[FriarJ]

Villanova had a cakewalk over Memphis State. And it was the first game on that Saturday. So actually the Big East had the final 3 remaining teams. Amazing. Crowd was chanting "Big East".

2 other 1985 notes.
1. BC lost to Memphis State by 2 earlier in the tourney... i think they were winning much of the game. We could have had all 4 Final Four teams with a small difference.
2. In the "Elite Eight Regional Finals" games, there were 3 Big East- ACC matchups, and the Big East swept all three.

Actually that was a sweet 16 game. They came really close to having all four teams.

[Jet915]

I think Marquette would be the natural rival to Creighton but we definitely need to continue to be successful in order for it to be a true rivalry...

[DeltaV]

It isn't exactly news, but Nova-GTown might have some bad blood...(cough...1985...cough), and Nova St. Johns is the classic Philly-NY rivalry.

Of the newbies...if I had to guess it would be V-X...they're probably the most similar to us.

Everyone knows the two best teams in the nation in 1985 played in the semis, not the final. It's a travesty that Vilannova won that tournament and SJU still has not returned to the Final 4 since.

Bitter much?

Thats ok. I'll be over here admiring our National Championship banner

[GumbyDamnit!]

It isn't exactly news, but Nova-GTown might have some bad blood...(cough...1985...cough), and Nova St. Johns is the classic Philly-NY rivalry.

Of the newbies...if I had to guess it would be V-X...they're probably the most similar to us.

Everyone knows the two best teams in the nation in 1985 played in the semis, not the final. It's a travesty that Vilannova won that tournament and SJU still has not returned to the Final 4 since.

Bitter much?

Thats ok. I'll be over here admiring our National Championship banner

Was thinking the same. Also proclaiming the SJU-Gtwn as the undisputed best rivalry is a bit much. That 85 SJU team was excellent and better than the Nova team but we certainly were not chopped liver. The problem was that we were not scared of Gtwn that year but I think you were.

Gtwn is our natural school rival b/c we are similar. Same type of kids go to both. SJU is a bit more urban/commuter and SJU needs to get back to consistent winning before they are a rival for anyone. Moving forward most looking forward to building a new rivalry with X. Have always admired their program from a distance.

[billyjack]

I read a recent interview with PJ Carlesimo on the Seton Hall site, and he said what many of us Big Easters always thought... that the Villanova win over Georgetown was an upset, but wasn't shocking or unexpected and definitely wasn't one of the greatest upsets ever. Anyone who followed the BE back then knew that the league was stacked and that all our teams were so competitive.

In the world of morons like Billy Packer it is an upset for the ages because he's in an ACC bubble and didn't understand the toughness and grittiness of the Big East back then or today.

[micgoG'town]

St. John's was certainly better than Villanova, but Villanova was a tougher match-up for G'town. If I remember right, G'town won 1 game by 3 and another in overtime, during the regular season. Certainly not the greatest upset of all time. Going into that game, there was a lot of talk about that G'town team being the greatest of all time. So suddenly getting beat by a #8 seed (despite how hot they are), is shocking to those who apparently don't understand rivalries and familiarity.

[NJRedman]

St. John's/Georgetown is easily the most historic rivalry in this conference and moving forward with Lavin/JT3 this rivalry will be restarted. With SJU's major decline over the last decade the rivalry has suffered mightily. Pair that with Georgetown's struggles in the late 90's early 2000's, missing the NCAA tournament 7 of 8 years from the 97-98 season to the 2004-05 season, a stretch that St. John's had success (1998 2nd in Big East, upset as 7 seed in NCAA Tourney; 1999 Elite 8, lost to OSU by 3 points to just miss Final 4 appearance against UConn; 2000 Big East Tournament Champs, 2 seed in NCAA Tourney upset by Gonzaga in 2nd round; 2002 9 seed in NCAA Tourney lost in 1st round-vacated season and root of future struggles) Also, it's worth noting that they played each for the 2003 NIT Championship (I know, I know nobody cares about the NIT) but it was still a great game that SJU won 70-67. So, during the short run that St. John's experienced some success over the last 15 years Georgetown was down and since Georgetown has revived their program into a national power once again St. John's has struggled with the exception of the lone NCAA Tournament appearance in 2011. Both schools know their extensive history with each other during the glory days of the Big East in the 1980's with the epic Mullin/Ewing battles, culminating with the 1985 Final 4 matchup Georgetown won, and would like nothing more than to return to their roots in those battles as the conference returns to its roots as a basketball centric conference. Make no mistake this is the most historic rivalry in the conference as well as one of the most historic rivalries in the nation and will be re-energized as Steve Lavin returns the program to national relevance through his extraordinary recruiting efforts. Georgetown/SJU will be THE new/old rivalry in the New Big East.

I was at that game. We rushed the court and everything. In the semi's we beat Bobby Knight led Texas Tech. Went to both games, they were awesome. Last awesome St. John's moment for many many...many years.

[NJRedman]

Butler and Marquette. The two games last year definitely set up nicely going into this season.