Orlando Classic (Xavier) Bracket Set

[Schickrateez]

Its about money..Eyeballs on TV and Attendance. In a perfect world a UConn would be a great fit.. not going to happen. Check the TV ratings for this weekend and clearly shows that Dayton has a strong following. Dayton clearly out distanced X in TV viewers for the weekend and out did any other Big East game on any network. Fact check it if you disagree. Go to Neilson Ratings .com . X basketball performance is terrific but there fans don't travel. Poor showing in Orlando and overwhelmed by Dayton fans. X is a regional school with a loyal following but not on the scale of a Louisville...UK...VCU....Dayton. Dayton would put 5k in the seats at MSG for the tourney and make it a even better atmosphere and please the Money guys. X has a great team this year and barley filled a corner. Two X games have had less than 10k in there own arena this year. Just not an intense group. Dayton will be next in and it will work well.

Watching the games on TV the fan allotment seemed a lot more even than you are portraying. It looked like Dayton had more fans, but not a huge amount more. My parents and brother, who were in Orlando, confirmed that Dayton did have more fans there, but it wasn't by a wide margin. That being said, HP Field House only seats 5,000 people. Dayton made the Championship game and even with Xavier having a decent allotment of fans at the game, the game was not sold out. Again, a 5,000 seat gym. Yes, Dayton has a solid fan base. They travel well for a school their size, but we're not talking about UK's fan base here either. Adding Dayton is not going to all of a sudden make the Big East the most watched conference. Adding Dayton would provide a small boost in viewership for their games, it's not going to garner the league more national attention.

[UD Flyer Fanatic]

Hello it's me again. I promised I'd not be an unwelcome guest and post only on threads relevant to UD. So I think I'm on safe ground here. I'm not sure I am the typical UD fan but from the people I often run into at the A-10 tournaments I think I'm pretty representative. First off I do not "hate" Xavier but they are the team I love to hate in a sport sense. I applaud X for doing something we have been unable to do- consistently field an excellent men's BB team.

Understanding Dayton fans is to know we have a passion for college hoops that is unmatched. It's our sports identity and it crushes us that despite the unqualified love, passion and support we will always have for our team we have not had the consistent winning tradition we so hope for.

I'm not clever enough to know if my UD friends are doing all the damage to this site that X fans attribute. But the only vitriolic comments I see come from X fans. Their descriptive terms about people like me to the rest of you leave the impression we are a cancer or vermin that would destroy this board and the BE if ever were to join. I will leave that up to you.

I do not expect to be invited to the BE.

I do not know if we have turned our back on X in past league affiliations.

I do know we were ashamed of the treatment some our drunk fans gave to Christie Mack in a game a few years ago. I do know we have tried to make that right with her.

I do know UD would be a passionate supporter of which ever league we are a part of.

I do know UD is a basketball driven private Catholic school that offers strong academics.

I do know we will never lose our passion to field the strongest men's BB team possible.

I do know we wish nothing but success to our X brothers and to each of you in the BE.

[murphy]

I honestly hope Xavier never plays Dayton again.

1) We already have a rival. UC and X will go up and down but we always play each other. Dayton has that with Wright State.
2) They are no longer equals. X improved for 30 years to earn the right to the Big East. Dayton was satisfied with mediocrity for the entirety of that time.
3) We are too similar. People can pick their own stats, but UD and X are very much equal in academic prestige and ideology. X is lacking in some areas (engineering, tech) and UD is larger but they have a lower bar for acceptance (personally know someone with a sub 3.0 GPA and 23 ACT that got in.) and much of their appeal is basically sponsored underage drinking in the "ghetto."
4) People talk about Conference Expansion like its a band-aid. If GW makes the final four is Georgetown going to invite them? Butler, Creighton and Xavier invested millions of dollars and countless hours over 20+ years building up their basketball programs to be what they are. We shouldn't reward teams for having a good 2 year stint.
5) The heckling of Christi Mack and the behavior at the First Four was the last straw. It burned any bridges that may have remained.
Dayton should be happy, the rivalry has worked against them for 30 years and they won more NCAA games in 2 years without the rivalry than 30 years prior.

Also, not to be grim. But Dayton's fanbase is much older than most. They are the ones that hate Xavier the most. Because they remember Dayton in its glory days and saw their southern brother surpass them. Dayton needs to cater to its younger fanbase who probably never enjoyed the lopsided rivalry and much prefers having their own identity.

20 years from now maybe Dayton will be better than Xavier, but they will have to earn it on their own, same as Xavier has done.

Excellent post.

My first reaction is to your last sentence: while coaching is tantamount to success, Xavier is much better positioned to sustain success in basketball due to its membership in the Big East, the money that brings, and because of its now 3 decade old track record. Obviously, it goes without saying that Xavier has been exceptional when it comes to managing its coaching lineage. UD has been a joke in that regard. So, overall, that is a very weak "maybe"; I'd say UD is "stuck" in one sense (the A10 v. the Big East) and will benefit in another sense - we're not there to club them to death any longer. With things tracking the way they are for the Big East, I see brand separation continuing between BE programs and A10 programs.

Otherwise, I think this Murphy guy is one of their older alums. He almost has to be. He actually seems to think that there is separation other than size between the two schools, when anyone with a brain knows that Xavier and UD and even Miami (OH) - to name three, in particular - are competing for many of the same kids. Otherwise, it's not that we "lack" in engineering; we simply didn't go down that road, nor did we go down the road of establishing a law school.

When it comes to tech, I would be a little more up-to-date than you are with that. Xavier's Center For Innovation (CFI) has already made great strides under Shawn Nason and now that it's tied to Cintrifuse and corporate partners like GE, etc. its off to the races. The fact that Xavier resides in Cincinnati is a Godsend in that regard. I would hate being located in a city like Dayton, which simply can't compete with the amount of entrepreneurial activity that is now taking place in the 'nati.

He really seems to like rankings and lists. How about a couple where UD doesn't even register:

Not even an afterthought: http://www.cruxnow.com/life/2014/09/10/top-catholic-colleges-and-universities-according-to-u-s-news-world-report/

Didn't even make the cut: http://www.collegechoice.net/rankings/top-catholic-colleges-and-universities/

Dayton isn't getting into the Big East. What will happen now will happen gradually. This and a few other UD fans' raging jealousy of Xavier will continue, but it will simmer down as we move away from the shellacking we gave them in Orlando. Some UD fans will come here and be civil or try to be civil. Some, like this poor Murphy guy, will find it harder to let go, but without knowing how small and petty he makes UD fandom look.

Murphy, I might have to start feeling sorry for you. 90-61.

Admin, why don't you consider locking this one up.

p.s. Who in their right mind would write-off Bill Murray just because his son coaches for Xavier. Nothing like UD fans little brothering it.

Nice try but you might want to look at US news 2015 instead of 2014. UD ranked 106 NATIONAL Universities. Where is XU ..? does not qualify as National. Do you understand the difference between a National and Regional University.? Ask any recruiter for engineering business law tech ...I could go on..if they would prefer xu or ud and they would laugh at you

[hoopstar]

The numbers don't lie... X simply does not travel... Less than 300 tickets sold for Orlando and thy don't come to the garden. Fox wants ratings and Fannie's in the seats . X simply not a passionate fan base .. And no one watches them on TV... Small regional school... Just the facts . Good team but no National juice. Big East needs a story line and great coaches ... Dayton has that with Archie. The games with Georgtown... Nova... St. John's ... Would see the difference with Dayton . Here gyms would be full. X has made no impact...

[BlueBlobsBro]

The numbers don't lie... X simply does not travel... Less than 300 tickets sold for Orlando and thy don't come to the garden. Fox wants ratings and Fannie's in the seats . X simply not a passionate fan base .. And no one watches them on TV... Small regional school... Just the facts . Good team but no National juice. Big East needs a story line and great coaches ... Dayton has that with Archie. The games with Georgtown... Nova... St. John's ... Would see the difference with Dayton . Here gyms would be full. X has made no impact...

The only national juice ud had gotten these past few weeks has been getting thrashed by x en route to us being raked 12th in the nation.

[bmorex]

The numbers don't lie... X simply does not travel... Less than 300 tickets sold for Orlando and thy don't come to the garden. Fox wants ratings and Fannie's in the seats . X simply not a passionate fan base .. And no one watches them on TV... Small regional school... Just the facts . Good team but no National juice. Big East needs a story line and great coaches ... Dayton has that with Archie. The games with Georgtown... Nova... St. John's ... Would see the difference with Dayton . Here gyms would be full. X has made no impact...

Found the Dayton fan

[Westbrook#36]

Someone call Orkin or Terminix, we have a pest control problem, dayton fans worse than cockroaches.

[BEX]

UD should try winning their own conference every 20-30 yrs.

[UD Flyer Fanatic]

Someone call Orkin or Terminix, we have a pest control problem, dayton fans worse than cockroaches.

I will say all posters should be transparent on their team alliance. To not be is bullsh-- it just pisses everyone off including true UD fans

[David HD]

The numbers don't lie... X simply does not travel... Less than 300 tickets sold for Orlando and thy don't come to the garden. Fox wants ratings and Fannie's in the seats . X simply not a passionate fan base .. And no one watches them on TV... Small regional school... Just the facts . Good team but no National juice. Big East needs a story line and great coaches ... Dayton has that with Archie. The games with Georgtown... Nova... St. John's ... Would see the difference with Dayton . Here gyms would be full. X has made no impact...

The numbers do lie when you leave out important variables.

Dayton's games were close and were in prime time. Xavier's were not. Xavier's game against USC was on ESPNU, which is not as widely distributed as the other ESPN networks. That game drew less than 80k viewers, but that's why. The game against Alabama was a crap game in the afternoon that was up against the NFL game, yet it still drew 217k viewers. Dayton's game was exciting, and in prime time, and yes it drew more viewers, but it still got less than 300k, which isn't bad for a November basketball game that's up against an NFL game that's on a network, but it's not good either. And, Dayton was playing Iowa. Their fanbase had something to do with it.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, you're still talking about rating between 0.0 and 0.1. You would need about three times that for Fox to really even consider it, and even if they do it's really not their call. Dayton would be higher, but in the grand scheme of things those ratings are still pathetic, and it's not worth paying as much as they'd have to in order to get them. Fox also doesn't give a crap about how many Xavier fans went to Orlando.

The Xavier v Cincinnati game will get well over a million viewers. It's on a network on a Saturday where there is no college football, and both teams are currently ranked. It will draw at least five times the viewers that the Xavier v Dayton game got. Now, to be fair there are reasons for that. It's on a network and not on cable, and it's not up against the NFL, but still. It's unlikely that Dayton will play in a single regular season game that gets anywhere close to 1/3rd the total viewership the Xavier v Cincinnati game will get.