[Paint Touches] Who becomes Marquette's new biggest rival?

[strotty]

Interested to see what you make of all this, and even if you don't read the whole thing look at the point differential in Marquette/Villanova's last 7 matchups.

http://painttouches.com/2013/05/27/who-is-marquettes-new-biggest-rival/

[MU82]

If DePaul can get back to at least Quentin Richardson-era good, it's a no-brainer rivalry because of both proximity and history.

Of the newbies, the two games last season certainly gives an MU-Butler rivalry a boost out of the gate. Also, Milwaukee and Indy are only 4 1/2 hours apart by car.

And I agree that Georgetown should be a good one.

I also very much hope we play ND every year.

[LloydMooresLegs]

I think that Butler for now and DePaul should its program improve are the two best candidates.   While Georgetown or Nova would be outstanding, I think they are likely to consider each other as their respective "bigget rivals," and to merit biggest rival consideration, both teams have to feel that way.

[Nukem2]

Creighton.......?

[Dreadman24]

Creighton.......?

You're joking, right?

[EnderWiggen]

You're joking, right?

Cant be worse than Providence  =/

[bilsu]

When we first joined the Big east, Villanova was the program I hoped MU would become. They were really good then, now I hope we do not become Villanova.

[boyonthedock]

During the 3 amigos years I felt there was a nice rivalry with memorable games against the coreys at nova. I certainly hated pittsburgh back then, especially aaron gray.

[Galway Eagle]

Hope it'll be Depaul if they get their stuff together.  Till then I see it as Butler and GTown with Xavier being like us with Louisville where there will be a lot of good games but we'll be on the winning side most of the time.  (In this example we become Louisville)

[JTBMU7]

Butler is probably the best bet simply because it already has some momentum after last year, and also puts two of the best young coaches against each other. The national media would have some recent drama to pull from to set that up...
G Town and Nova will not happen because of their east coast ties and history.
Xavier would be cool as well as I think they are a very similar program in a lot of ways to ours.
DePaul needs to get their act together as the Milwaukee Chicago rivalry makes sense...

[Galway Eagle]

Butler is probably the best bet simply because it already has some momentum after last year, and also puts two of the best young coaches against each other. The national media would have some recent drama to pull from to set that up...
G Town and Nova will not happen because of their east coast ties and history.
Xavier would be cool as well as I think they are a very similar program in a lot of ways to ours.
DePaul needs to get their act together as the Milwaukee Chicago rivalry makes sense...

Some recent drama in the Xavier series too as we ended their streak of sweet 16s

[radome]

I think that it is the team that you compete with consistently for the title, geography matters but is less important. Given the above; Georgetown with Butler a close second. 

[bilsu]

Does a rival have to be hated? If so, I am not sure there is a big rival in our conference for me. The teams I hated the most were Louisville and Syracuse followed by Pitt, Cincy & Uconn.  I would not want to lose to Seton Hall, Providence and DePaul, because right now they are not very good, but I do not hate them like some of the teams we are no longer with. I think the most important team in our conference to beat is Georgetown, but I also like Georgetown.

[Galway Eagle]

Does a rival have to be hated? If so, I am not sure there is a big rival in our conference for me. The teams I hated the most were Louisville and Syracuse followed by Pitt, Cincy & Uconn.  I would not want to lose to Seton Hall, Providence and DePaul, because right now they are not very good, but I do not hate them like some of the teams we are no longer with. I think the most important team in our conference to beat is Georgetown, but I also like Georgetown.

I think we should all hate Butler for not being a catholic school! (Lets pretend I bothered to do teal)

[Niv Berkowitz]

Xavier, Georgetown or Butler. G-town will probably be the biggest to start up the "new" league since we are the two strongest remaining teams/brands.

I can see Butler becoming nice as long as both coaches are around for awhile. Xavier should be good too.

[Skatastrophy]

I don't really care about the new teams.

I dislike GTown. A lot.

[Dawson Rental]

Creighton.......?

This isn't as silly as it seems.  Creighton has a huge fan base that travels well.  Nothing screams rivalry as much as having the other teams fans in your face while you're losing at home.

[bilsu]

This isn't as silly as it seems.  Creighton has a huge fan base that travels well.  Nothing screams rivalry as much as having the other teams fans in your face while you're losing at home.

We have the second longest home court winning streak.

[frozena pizza]

Definitely Georgetown and Villanova for now.  After that probably the three new members.  We are light years ahead of DePaul so I don't consider them a rival as much as a team you pray to God that you don't lose to like we did a few years ago.

[bork]

Creighton.......?

We do have more history against them than any team other than DePaul in the new Big East.

DePaul-112
Creighton-76
Xavier-62
Butler-29
No on else over 21.

[Skatastrophy]

Georgetown and Nova.

But I expect that to change while the league shakes out the next couple of years.

It'll be whomever comes to our house and beats us a couple of times in a row. That was why I've hated Cincy and L'ville for the past 10 years.

[frozena pizza]

I think Creighton will be a great rival.  Great fans, great school and they are thrilled to be in the league.  Hopefully they can keep the basketball program running at a high level which I think they will.  I also like that we are no longer the Western edge of the conference.

[Benny B]

Most great rivalries (read: except ND football) are between two schools in close proximity to one another.  As much as I hope DePaul can get it together, call me a cynic as long as JLP is at the helm; so the next closest to MU is Butler.  If you can't send a 10 or 20-car caravan of students to an away game with a rival, can they really be considered your biggest rival?

All great rivalries have history.  Again, DePaul... blah blah... Ponsetto... blah blah.  Sure there's some history with G-Town and Nova, but I would imagine the average fan would struggle to name two memorable games between MU and GTown or Nova.  Using my wife as a proxy, she rattled off Dominic James' foul vs. Georgetown several years back and nothing else.  I then asked her for her two most memorable games involving any team, and Butler was her answer was to both... hard-fought, back-and-forth games in both the opening round in Maui and the third-round of the tournament, both decided by a prayer three at the end?  If 20 years from now MU and Butler are one of the most intense rivalries in college hoops, that rivalry will be traced back to last year, and just about every game between now and then will be showing both of those buzzer clips.  Although, I would also throw a fifth school into the mix, as it's difficult to discount St. John's given the striking similarities between the two schools, not to mention how Al ties it all together.

Some great rivalries extend beyond the basketball court.  If MU fulfills its recently-announced mission, then MU and Georgetown will be going head-to-head in everything from students to basketball recruits to academics to grants to faculty.  With everyone else, the competition ends at the edge of the hardwood.

Many rivalries involve some sort of vitriol.  It's hard to get mad at Butler, Nova or St John's, let alone anyone else in the conference... except GTown, because it's easy to hate GTown, but i) everyone hates GTown and ii) does GTown ever reciprocate?  Outside of Jonathan Xavier and the two people on Butler's fanboard who honestly think Smith was fouled, does anyone in the new conference really hate MU?

Conclusion: To the harden Warrior, DePaul is the sought-after, sentimental choice, with GTown being the sure-bet.  To the average fan (i.e. someone who doesn't spend more than 5 minutes/day on Scoop), Butler would be the odds-on favorite.

[Spotcheck Billy]

and hopefully Creighton isn't the team that ends it!

We have the second longest home court winning streak.

[Windyplayer]

Georgetown and Nova.

But I expect that to change while the league shakes out the next couple of years.

It'll be whomever comes to our house and beats us a couple of times in a row. That was why I've hated Cincy and L'ville for the past 10 years.

Good criterion. Never really thought about it, but so true.