Big East schedule coming next week!

[Bob Loblaw]

[Bill Marsh]

Let's face it; the whole rivalries thing is made for TV hype. As a result, I would treat it that way and use it as an opportunity to manufacture some rivalries if that's what it takes.

With the conference being split between 5 Midwest schools and 5 East Coast schools, some pair is going to cross over the East-West divide. Teaching g orders at Catholic universities are an easy way to bridge that. With 4 Jesuit colleges, there ate multiple opportunities with those 4. With their recent Big East success Georgetown-Marquette is a natural. As a university with a national reputation that represents a city with national stature, Georgetown could also be paired with either of the other 2 Jesuit schools. Georgetown-Xavier is an easy one because it has the shortest geographic distance.

However, I would go with the Vincentian connection between St. John's and DePaul. Neither of the basketball programs has great stature right now, but they represent the conference's 2 largest cites, which by itself should create a big audience. Playing up Chicago's "second city" angle vs the Big Apple would provide a nice marketing approach.

The other Midwest schools would be easy to pair, but not some much in the East. Georgetown-Villanova would be a monster game because both have had recent success and are relatively close. OTOH, that would almost insure that the league would have to write off the PC-SHU pairing that would result, which they may want to do just because GU-VU would be so big. I would go the other way because GU and VU are big enough that they should attract big audiences against almost anyone. Villanova draws a lot of its student body from NJ and has a lot of alums in NJ, so pairing them with SHU should work. JohnThompson's Providence background has always brought PC some connection with the Georgetown program. With his son coaching GU, Big John's shadow still looms large,over the Georgetown program. I could see using interviews with him to play up the PC connection being a useful a way to market the game.

My pairings would look like this:

St. John's - DePaul
Butler - Xavier
Marquette - Creighton
Villanova - Seton Hall
Georgetown - Providence

[Bulldog_Muskie]

As a non Catholic alum of the only non Catholic school, I have to ask... How big are these various catholic connections (vincentian etc) in the catholic community? I just think some/most of that would be lost on the casual hoops fan and they wouldn't really care unless it was a good matchup.

[nathanhm]

My pairings would look like this:

St. John's - DePaul
Butler - Xavier
Marquette - Creighton
Villanova - Seton Hall
Georgetown - Providence

Don't like that set of games at all. Rivalries should get people fired up. Not saying the teams in the league don't have other rivalries but this is the cleanest setup below. 4 existing rivalries and only 1 need one that needs some marketing. That being said I fully expect Providence and Creighton to be some of the better teams going forward so it should be a good game.

Georgetown - Villanova
DePaul - Marquette
Seton Hall - St. John's
Butler - Xavier
Creighton - Providence (only current non rivalry game)

[billyjack]

As a non Catholic alum of the only non Catholic school, I have to ask... How big are these various catholic connections (vincentian etc) in the catholic community? I just think some/most of that would be lost on the casual hoops fan and they wouldn't really care unless it was a good matchup.

I'm a Catholic non-alum fan of Providence, and I don't know the differences between a Dominican and a Vincentian and a Jesuit. Most fans don't either, and alums know but they don't really care. I think Dominicans are supposed to be more like bookworms, studious, mellow types. Jesuits are more aggressive I think. I really am just talking out of my butt.

[Noonzy]

I am an alum of PC and I couldn't care less about what order they are.

[marquette]

As a non Catholic alum of the only non Catholic school, I have to ask... How big are these various catholic connections (vincentian etc) in the catholic community? I just think some/most of that would be lost on the casual hoops fan and they wouldn't really care unless it was a good matchup.

I don't know about other orders, but Jesuits tend to have pretty strong ties between schools. I know Marquette and Creighton have shared staff, and the president of Creighton sits on Marquette's board of directors. It's true that most fans have no idea what order each school belongs to, and I doubt they would care either way.

[MUBoxer]

I think the only order that really tries to care a bunch about what it stands for and everything is the Jesuits. But my GF went to Depaul and she's trying to be up on me that DePaul cares about its order too.

[Daffron24]

As a non Catholic alum of the only non Catholic school, I have to ask... How big are these various catholic connections (vincentian etc) in the catholic community? I just think some/most of that would be lost on the casual hoops fan and they wouldn't really care unless it was a good matchup.

I don't know about other orders, but Jesuits tend to have pretty strong ties between schools. I know Marquette and Creighton have shared staff, and the president of Creighton sits on Marquette's board of directors. It's true that most fans have no idea what order each school belongs to, and I doubt they would care either way.

Marquette's current prez used to teach at Georgetown and I know they were an integral part of forming the new BE.

[dmac80]

any bets on when this schedule comes out? Today? Time? I'm chomping at the bit. It could also come out towards the end of the week maybe Thursday afternoon or something.