Pick your school's new Big East rival

[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.

[Irishdawg]

Butler's biggest rival is Brad Stevens.

Other rivals are X and possibly Marquette.

[Donnybrook]

If (and that's a big "if") DePaul can ever get their stuff together, Marquette/DePaul would be a huge rivalry. Sports fans in Milwaukee and Chicago already hate each other, no reason that shouldn't be the case in college hoops too. Include the fact that the MU student body is probably 25% Chicagoland kids and the two schools are 90 minutes apart make it even more interesting. However, Marquette's success over the last decade along with DePaul's virtual irrelevance has made this series a yawner.

[Johnnies91]

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.

[billyjack]

In the 70's, the Friars used to play St John's near the end of each season, and it was a huge rivalry game. Actually, each year PC would play Villanova, Seton Hall and DePaul too.

PC's schedule would have several national games each year, like North Carolina (pc win), Michigan (win), Louisville (win), Duke (loss), Stanford (win)... usually a western trip of some kind... one year UCLA, another Oregon, Santa Clara maybe.

Also, every year PC would play like St Joe's, Niagara, Canisius, St Bonaventure, Duquesne, Holy Cross, Boston College, URI twice and Brown twice. We'd open usually against the Greyhounds of Assumption. Back in 60's we had a half dozen games vs Creighton.

[marq]

We had some great games with Butler but I think long term Creighton maps out as a natural rival.

[Omahanian]

Like others have said, I see Creighton looking to Marquette as a respected rivalry. The recent history between Xavier plus two Catholic newbies looking to reign supreme over the other makes me look there. Finally, there was a lot of smack talk between at least a few Creighton and Butler fans last season as to who was overrated, who didn't really play anyone, etc. The usual garbage but it got intense. So that could end up being a rivalry too.

As far as the other schools truly to the east, this Midwest-centric guy just doesn't have any idea what to expect yet.

[Dave]

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.

Memphis State was good, but I don't think they were better than Georgetown.

[aughnanure]

If DePaul and St. John's ever rose to national prominence again (i.e. top 20 programs) their games could become pretty loaded. The 2 largest Catholic schools in the nation in the the top 2 TV markets.

[billyjack]

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.