MU Rivalries

[Dish]

This is obviously not football related. Wisconsin can play St. Mary's School For The Blind 8 times for all I care.

[spiral97]

This is obviously not football related. Wisconsin can play St. Mary's School For The Blind 8 times for all I care.

won't happen.. UW is adamant about playing more winnable games than not.

[MUCrisco]

This is obviously not football related. Wisconsin can play St. Mary's School For The Blind 8 times for all I care.

Well no offense, but for basketball, that conference is terrible.  We might as well go back to the MCC.

[WashDCWarrior]

I agree, that would be a terrible idea.  When we were in C-USA (or Great Midwest), we would play maybe 3 conference games that garnered national attention.  Now we'll play 8-10.  I hope we never revert to a small midwest-only conference.

Also, Marquette alumns are spread around the entire country.  Not just in the Milwaukee / Chicago / NW Indiana areas.  The Big East has allowed many alumns to start attending road games consistently for the first time.  I've been able to go to games at Pitt, Nova, WVU, and Georgetown since the conference switch.  The switch has reinvigorated a lot of our fan base.

[Dish]

Yikes, apparently my hypothetical idea is getting all turned around.

I'm not advocating it by any stretch of the imagination, I think people are taking it too seriously. It was purely a regional grouping of colleges, based on geographical rivalries for fun. Nothing else to it.

[AlumKCof93]

If we could have a more regional conference, I'd like it to look something like this,

MU,
DePaul
ND
Dayton

These 4 schools played each other 2x every year when I was growing up while all were independents.  I think it would be great if Dayton were still in our conference - never understood why there weren't in Conference USA.

St. Louis (catholic school similar to us)
Cincinnati
Louisville
Xavier

With these 8, I think you would have a regional conference with mostly good schools and a lot with great tradition.  It would seem necessary to add 2 or more additional schools, but I can't think of whom else to invite.

In writing this, of course I'm happy with the Big East.  I'm just responding to the earlier post.

[Tribby]

If we could have a more regional conference, I'd like it to look something like this,

MU,
DePaul
ND
Dayton

These 4 schools played each other 2x every year when I was growing up while all were independents.  I think it would be great if Dayton were still in our conference - never understood why there weren't in Conference USA.

St. Louis (catholic school similar to us)
Cincinnati
Louisville
Xavier

With these 8, I think you would have a regional conference with mostly good schools and a lot with great tradition.  It would seem necessary to add 2 or more additional schools, but I can't think of whom else to invite.

In writing this, of course I'm happy with the Big East.  I'm just responding to the earlier post.

Not that they're anti-Catholic, but I'm not sure why Cincy and Louisville would be excited about sharing a conference with 6 Catholic schools and no other public schools. Would make about as much sense as Northwestern being the only private school in the B11 ...

[AlumKCof93]

I think the draw would be that this would be a very good basketball conference.  I think the bigger question would be why would they join a basketball conference when football is such a bigger revenue sport and they're football teams are on the rise. But that would be for them to decide, I think this would work for MU if there is another conference shake-up.

[MUCrisco]

If we are talking about realistic options here, that conference would not work for Louisville or Cinci.  Let's be honest here guys.  Football is what matters.  That's why BC, Va Tech, and Miami bolted for the ACC.  That's why I think its important for the football teams in the Big East to do well, so they won't want to split.  Louisville and Cinci would not accept getting out of a BCS conference.

My ideal conference is the Big East.  If possible, I would have added Memphis and dropped a school like Seton Hall or Providence.  I would have had an upper tier and a lower tier for basketball with teams playing each other twice.  I would add the English Premier league rules so that if you find yourself in the bottom 2 or 3 for a year, then you are moved down and if your are in the top 2 or 3 for the bottom tier, you are moved up. 

[The Man in Gold]

This has all been said before....but if the Big east ever does break up or the NCAA nukes all the current conferences, I would like to see the private Big East schools join up.  A conference of the following would be pretty fun, and football concerns would be limited to independent Notre Dame...

Marquette (MKE)
Depaul (Chicago)
Georgetown (DC)
St. Johns (NYC)
Seton Hall (NJ)
Providence
Notre Dame (Indiana)
Villanova (Philly)

And maybe 2 of these 3, for a full 18 game round-robin season:
Dayton
Xavier (Cincy)
St. Louis

I still greatly prefer the Big East, but I could live with a conference like this.  The quality is still pretty high and it keeps together most of our rivalries.  Also it is more than just a Midwest conference.  With most games in arguably key markets.