MU-G'Town Rivalry

[Coleman]

I think with the right amount of hype from FS1, these two games have the potential to turn into FS1's version of what the Duke-UNC game is to ESPN.

Duke-UNC was always a rivalry, but it became so well known because of ESPN. The hype was ridiculous. They would have the games simulcast on all of their channels. There was even a year they had ESPNU with a camera on the Cameron Crazies the entire game. Stupid and overkill. But it turned the game into a nationally known rivalry.

I really hope FS1 hypes the crap out of these games. It should be their 2 marquee college basketball matchups every season. Include tons of ads hyping the game in the week before, do their own version of College Gameday, find some backstory on the schools' Jesuit roots, go into the history of Al/John Thompson, etc. We no longer have to compete with ESPN's Duke-UNC (ACC in general) asskissing, so I hope FS1 decides to find their own storylines to hype.

[brewcity77]

I think proximity would make it difficult to ever truly rival Duke and North Carolina. Part of what makes that rivalry so great that they're only separated by a few miles on tobacco road. Marquette and Georgetown are 1000 miles apart in completely different parts of the country. It has the potential to be an excellent rivalry, but I can see it being impeded for the same reasons Kentucky versus Florida and Kansas versus Texas haven't taken off the level of Duke and Carolina.

[bilsu]

You could really get the rivalry a lot of coverage if you could get the No. 1 Jesuit to attend the game.

[Coleman]

I think proximity would make it difficult to ever truly rival Duke and North Carolina. Part of what makes that rivalry so great that they're only separated by a few miles on tobacco road. Marquette and Georgetown are 1000 miles apart in completely different parts of the country. It has the potential to be an excellent rivalry, but I can see it being impeded for the same reasons Kentucky versus Florida and Kansas versus Texas haven't taken off the level of Duke and Carolina.

Fair enough, maybe not a Duke-UNC level, but maybe a Georgetown-Syracuse level?

[Atticus]

Fair enough, maybe not a Duke-UNC level, but maybe a Georgetown-Syracuse level?

FS1 would probably hope that the marquee rivalry would be GTown vs. St. Johns - two original BE members that would resonate better/easier with college basketball fans, particularly on the east coast.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

You could really get the rivalry a lot of coverage if you could get the No. 1 Jesuit to attend the game.

The "Pope Bowl".

[frozena pizza]

If only DePaul wasn't so bad we might have something...

[Atticus]

I think X will end up being our biggest rival. They are easy to dislike.

[hoyasincebirth]

Fair enough, maybe not a Duke-UNC level, but maybe a Georgetown-Syracuse level?

Georgetown v. Syracuse is at the Duke v UNC level. I don't think we'll ever have a rivalry like that again. I will hate Syracuse till the day I die and I will teach my children to hate syracuse even if we never play them again. In terms of new conference rivals I think our best fit is Villanova, but I wouldn't mind St. John's either we have history with both those teams. It's hard to hate you guys too much as we have only been in the conference together a limited amount of time and you're so far away.

It's hard to fit teams together with rivalries by location and competitive balance at this point. No one wants to get stuck with DePaul. I think Creighton v. Marquette, DePaul v. Butler, Providence v. Xavier, Villanova v. Georgetown, and St. Johns v. Seton Hall comes close. I could also see DePaul v. Seton Hall, Providence v. St. John's and Xavier v. Butler.

[MUMonster03]

There just isn't enough history there yet for it to be a big time rivalry. We need several years of us both being at the top of the league and battling each other late in the season for championships to develop any true animosity.

We have any played them 13 times in the Big East and very few of those games have been super close. Both teams have only won once on the road and the two tournament meetings have been blowouts.

It has the potential to become a better rivalry if the games become more consistently close and some upsets happen on the road. It has a chance now that we will play them at least 2 times a year for the next few years but needs more time and one or two classic games.

[WI inferiority Complexes]

Georgetown v. Syracuse is at the Duke v UNC level.

Nobody not associated with G'Town nor Syracuse would ever claim that.

[Litehouse]

MU/Georgetown could eventually surpass MU/Louisville.  Duke/UNC is another stratosphere with Yankees/Red Sox, Alabama/Auburn, and Michigan/Ohio State.

[TallTitan34]

Georgetown v. Syracuse is at the Duke v UNC level.

Nay.

[Coleman]

Georgetown v. Syracuse is at the Duke v UNC level.

As an objective outsider who cheers for neither Duke, UNC, Syracuse or Georgetown, I completely disagree

[Coleman]

While G'town might want to cling to the Syracuse rivalry as a relic of better days, the bottom line is you can't be rivals with someone you don't play.

[Aughnanure]

To Georgetown it will be:

1. vs St John's
2. vs Villanova
3. vs Marquette

We have to find the team that sees us as their #1 rival first. Xavier is a good option. DePaul should be.

[WI inferiority Complexes]

We have to find the team that sees us as their #1 rival first. Xavier is a good option.

Knocking Butler out of the tournament was a good first step to becoming their #1 rival.

[bilsu]

Knocking Butler out of the tournament was a good first step to becoming their #1 rival.

I think a rival has to be a school that the majority of fans just hate to lose to and is also a competitor in the recruiting circles. I do not see where we are often going after the same players as Georgetown, Xavier or Butler. I think DePaul easily becomes our greatest rival, if they ever get good again.

[GooooMarquette]

To Georgetown it will be:

1. vs St John's
2. vs Villanova
3. vs Marquette

We have to find the team that sees us as their #1 rival first. Xavier is a good option. DePaul should be.

If we beat Georgetown on a regular basis and/or regularly fight with them for the BE title, they'll see us as a rival.  If not, they won't.

Kinda like schools that have been metioned as possible rivals for MU - Xavier, Butler or DePaul.  If we pound them into oblivion, we won't see them as rivls. But if those teams are good and regularly compete with us, we're more likely to view them as a rival. 

That's why, despite the geographic proximity, most MU fans don't see DePaul as a rival.  They should be, and maybe someday they will be again, but for now, they simply aren't.

Short-term, I see the biggest opportunities with Creighton, Butler or Xavier.  Longer term, it depends who wins.

[Atticus]

As an objective outsider who cheers for neither Duke, UNC, Syracuse or Georgetown, I completely disagree

Agree. However, it certainly was the second best rivalry in the country. Rivalry week usually seemed to kick-off on Monday with GTown-SU followed by Duke-UNC as the late game. In the 80's, it was def number one. I think UConn-SU surpassed GTown-SU because of the Calhoun-boeheim matchup and the 6 overtime game. But those rivalries put the BE on the map so it's hard to downplay them.

[MU82]

MU/Georgetown could eventually surpass MU/Louisville.  Duke/UNC is another stratosphere with Yankees/Red Sox, Alabama/Auburn, and Michigan/Ohio State.

Perfectly stated.

[Spotcheck Billy]

I always loved the Bedlam series between OK & OK state

[StillAWarrior]

MU/Georgetown could eventually surpass MU/Louisville.

I agree.  And there is no real geographic proximity that explains the MU/Louisville rivalry.  The rivalry developed because they were two top programs in the conference and they had a string of incredible games.

[hoyasincebirth]

MU/Georgetown could eventually surpass MU/Louisville.  Duke/UNC is another stratosphere with Yankees/Red Sox, Alabama/Auburn, and Michigan/Ohio State.

People view those rivalries as on another level because the media hypes it as such. Georgetown v. Syracuse is built on pure hate and there is no mutual respect like in the Duke v. UNC rivalry. Just pure unadulterated hate. I don't care what anyone says. But Georgetown and Syracuse hate each other as much or more than any sports rivalry. If you're not a part of it, you cannot know. These teams used to get into physical fights on the court in the 80s. The duke v. UNC rivalry is overblown by ESPN. Southerners are too nice to really hate each other. Up north we know how it's done. It's a rivalry based on them being close together and competitive, but they don't truly hate each other the way Georgetown and Syracuse hate each other.

feel free to argue otherwise, but it won't change my opinion.

[WI inferiority Complexes]

Southerners are too nice to really hate each other. Up north we know how it's done. It's a rivalry based on them being close together and competitive, but they don't truly hate each other the way Georgetown and Syracuse hate each other.

There's a good book titled "To Hate Like this is to be Happy Forever," which outlines the rivalry and its roots.

I understand you're biased towards your school's rivalry, but your perception of the mutual respect shown by Duke/UNC is way, way off.  UNC hates Duke the way only a public school can hate the private school down the road.  While at UNC, Larry Brown was in a bad brawl with a Duke player, there have been numerous instances of violence between the two fan bases; they absolutely hate each other.

Also, Southerns are not as nice as necessarily nice as you seem to think.