Top 5 Big East Rivalries

[SJHooper]

St. John's and Seton Hall are in different classes if you look at the programs overall. All you need to see is this stat to prove it: total number of NCAA appearances. Seton Hall has what 9? St. John's has almost 30. Yes most of those NCAA years are well behind us, but it still counts does it not? I look at the full body of work.

And wtf is with this Butler guy trashing SJU all the time? Dude, Butler looks absolutely lost in a major conference. I hope that changes but so far they have been awful and lost their coach. Seems to me the only thing you have to brag about is some dusty old field house in the sticks of Indiana. Now go eat some fresh humble pie.

[Professor_Bulldog]

If we are handing out humble pie I suggest several of the Johnnies fans on this board pull up a seat at the table.

The constant disrespect/dismissal of the three new schools by some elements of the original school fanbases is unnecessary at best and laughable at worst. Questioning the ability of a team to compete in a given year is fine, for instance I have misgivings regarding Creighton this year. But to consistently act as though the new schools don't know anything about basketball and can't even comprehend what a "real" rivalry is based on an egotism that only a select group of supporters can legitimately hold.

I mention St John's in this regard, because the loudest contributors of this kind of dialogue have been from this group. Pointing out their lack of recent success is just as valid as pointing out Butler's struggles last year (this year?) as well as Creighton's uncertain future if you ask me.

[R to the OB]

If we are handing out humble pie I suggest several of the Johnnies fans on this board pull up a seat at the table.

The constant disrespect/dismissal of the three new schools by some elements of the original school fanbases is unnecessary at best and laughable at worst. Questioning the ability of a team to compete in a given year is fine, for instance I have misgivings regarding Creighton this year. But to consistently act as though the new schools don't know anything about basketball and can't even comprehend what a "real" rivalry is based on an egotism that only a select group of supporters can legitimately hold.

I mention St John's in this regard, because the loudest contributors of this kind of dialogue have been from this group. Pointing out their lack of recent success is just as valid as pointing out Butler's struggles last year (this year?) as well as Creighton's uncertain future if you ask me.

+1

[Irishdawg]

Butler's obviously got some issues to work out, but let's at least let them go a few years in the Big East before we declare them "lost". It didn't take a genius last year when you just looked at the teams when they came out on the court that Butler's players were physically over-matched from the opening tip in every conference game they played. Getting back Jones along with this year's freshman class, Butler will start to look much more like a Big East squad, so hopefully we'll start to see a few more wins come the Bulldogs way.

I personally think it's stupid to bash any school in the league. I do recall a lot of posting going on by a couple of St. John's fans last year questioning whether or not Xavier, Creighton and Butler would be able to handle playing the Catholic 7. Obviously Creighton and Xavier proved they could, and while Butler competed well in most of their games, they haven't shown an ability to win them just yet, but hopefully we'll see that change. Either way, it's imperative that most, if not all these schools need to be competitive to keep the league interesting and get more people on board. As much as we'll pick on each other once the season starts, we're all in this together.

To get back to the point of the thread, definitely agree that Butler's biggest league rival is Xavier, followed by Marquette just because of how tightly contested the last 4 games have been between the two schools.

[GumbyDamnit!]

ALL fans seem to get so defensive when they think someone else is slighting their team (mea culpa as well). I think what we all have to keep in mind is that the triggers of many of these arguments are opinion pieces. This guy wrote a small opinion piece on some perceived rivalries in the BE. Everyone has their opinions, but its all subjective. So who really cares?

This new league is in its infancy stages so give it time to develop. If DePaul and SHU get their collective sh!t together, and find themselves at the top of the league, in 10 years we may be saying that theirs is the biggest rivalry. As a Nova fan the G'twn connection is strong b/c we are similar type schools only separated by a couple hundred miles, we played in a NC together, have both made FF's in the last decade, and along with Marq., have had the most success in recent memory of the oBE teams coming over. So I prob consider those games to be more important on the calendar than say games vs. SHU or DePaul. But the thought that either Butler, XU or Creighton haven't "earned" their BE stripes to be considered as one of the better rivalries is ridiculous. Each have proven enough to be invited in. That's good enough for me. I actually thought that over the years, Nova would build a nice rivalry with X. Still anticipate that happening.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Why give the writer any credence anyway? There are several mistakes throughout the piece. He says the '85 team was coached by Ed Pinkney. Umm no. EZ Ed was the starting center. Maybe you forgot a legendary coach by the name of Roland Massimino? Bad writing throughout.

[Hall2012]

I'd put the SJU/SH rivalry in the 3rd spot. There is serious bad blood between the two schools and fan bases. Between the recent recruiting battles and the fact that my johnnies will schedule SH at Carnesecca instead of MSG just so they won't have a large fan presence at the games shows the level of animosity the two sides have towards each other. Not to mention the countless times I was told to go F myself as I walked through the lobby of the Rock with my Eugene Lawrence jersey on. hahaha

I think deep down St. John's and Seton Hall fans don't really hate each other. I know I root for the hall to do well. Truth be told we are much more similar then we are different.

I semi-agree with this. Head to head, I want SHU to kick SJ's ass every single time. As far as when the Johnnies play anyone else, I root for them to do well (especially in non-conference, obviously). Why? Because a strong local rival keeps you pushing forward. College hoops, in particular, is driven by rivalries. In the old Big East, I'd always hoped to see SJU, SHU, and RU all get good at the same time- it could have really turned the New York area into a college hoops town. RU's in the B1G now so screw them, but if SJU and SHU both became perennial top 25 teams at the same time, their head-to-head games could become every bit the must see TV that games like Duke-UNC and Ohio State-Michigan are.

[Hall2012]

St. John's and Seton Hall are in different classes if you look at the programs overall. All you need to see is this stat to prove it: total number of NCAA appearances. Seton Hall has what 9? St. John's has almost 30. Yes most of those NCAA years are well behind us, but it still counts does it not? I look at the full body of work.

And wtf is with this Butler guy trashing SJU all the time? Dude, Butler looks absolutely lost in a major conference. I hope that changes but so far they have been awful and lost their coach. Seems to me the only thing you have to brag about is some dusty old field house in the sticks of Indiana. Now go eat some fresh humble pie.

It counts when you just want to reminisce about the glory days. Other wise, not really. Yes, St. John's and Seton Hall were in different classes for a very long time, pretty much from the programs' inceptions through the mid-late 1980s- a time span in which Seton Hall was largely irrelevant and never reached the NCAA tournament. So, admittedly, the Johnnies have a whole lot more history to point to.

However, it has no relevance to where the programs stand now. Since Seton Hall's first NCAA appearance in 1988, the two have been very much in the same class. St. John's has 10 NCAA appearances to Seton Hall's 9. They've both been to the elite 8 twice, Seton Hall's been the Final Four once. The Johnnies have 1 Big East Tournament and 1 regular season championship. The Pirates have 2 of each.

They've also both struggled mightily recently, only making 1 NCAA Appearance each in the past decade. Both schools have reason to be optimistic that they're on the way out of the down spell, but they both still need to prove it. Hopefully this year is the start of big things for both of them.

So yes, in terms of having luxurious past history to point back at, there's no comparison, the Johnnies have a whole lot more. But as far their modern history and where the programs stand now, St. John's and Seton Hall are very much in the same class.

[stever20]

I'd put the SJU/SH rivalry in the 3rd spot. There is serious bad blood between the two schools and fan bases. Between the recent recruiting battles and the fact that my johnnies will schedule SH at Carnesecca instead of MSG just so they won't have a large fan presence at the games shows the level of animosity the two sides have towards each other. Not to mention the countless times I was told to go F myself as I walked through the lobby of the Rock with my Eugene Lawrence jersey on. hahaha

I think deep down St. John's and Seton Hall fans don't really hate each other. I know I root for the hall to do well. Truth be told we are much more similar then we are different.

I semi-agree with this. Head to head, I want SHU to kick SJ's ass every single time. As far as when the Johnnies play anyone else, I root for them to do well (especially in non-conference, obviously). Why? Because a strong local rival keeps you pushing forward. College hoops, in particular, is driven by rivalries. In the old Big East, I'd always hoped to see SJU, SHU, and RU all get good at the same time- it could have really turned the New York area into a college hoops town. RU's in the B1G now so screw them, but if SJU and SHU both became perennial top 25 teams at the same time, their head-to-head games could become every bit the must see TV that games like Duke-UNC and Ohio State-Michigan are.

I think now especially you have to root for the other conference teams. As we saw last year- OOC is so crucial when you have the double round robin like we do.

[Amase2]

If we are handing out humble pie I suggest several of the Johnnies fans on this board pull up a seat at the table.

The constant disrespect/dismissal of the three new schools by some elements of the original school fanbases is unnecessary at best and laughable at worst. Questioning the ability of a team to compete in a given year is fine, for instance I have misgivings regarding Creighton this year. But to consistently act as though the new schools don't know anything about basketball and can't even comprehend what a "real" rivalry is based on an egotism that only a select group of supporters can legitimately hold.

I mention St John's in this regard, because the loudest contributors of this kind of dialogue have been from this group. Pointing out their lack of recent success is just as valid as pointing out Butler's struggles last year (this year?) as well as Creighton's uncertain future if you ask me.

Please understand that hooper does not speak for all of us. Us St. John's fans cant stand him either. How could we turn our nose up at 3 schools WE NEEDED in order to continue to play big time bball? Of course they needed us as well but there is a good reason why we should be happy to have the 3 schools. Their good programs.