New Year's Eve - Villanova at Butler 7:30pm ET FS1

[BillikensWin]

Butler sold out for SLU last year. I tried to get tickets and was unsuccessful.

Surprised they're not sold to the rafters already, but there's 2 days left.

There was a good sized slu fan group there. I sat next to two slu students who managed to sneak in rum and cokes in soda bottles. Fun guys

We're good at surreptitiously sneaking in our own refreshments.

[butlerguy03]

From my perspective: my wife works a ticket window at Hinkle, one of my best friends works in the Butler athletic office.

Butler is always a hard sell. Alumni are scattered across the country, the students are out for winter break, the Pacers and IU both play earlier in the day (which takes some dual-buyers away), Colts playoff tickets are now on sale, etc. We have had plenty of ranked teams come into Hinkle. It's not like we've never played one.

Yes, Villanova is probably a 3rd or 4th tier name around central Indiana. Not bashing, just telling the truth. No alumni here, no history here. Xavier is a 1st tier name. Georgetown is probably 2nd tier. It has a lot to do with historical rivalries, alumni tie-ins, etc.

As a Butler grad and faithful fan, please stop the bashing of our city. Don't let certain trolls give you a bad feeling for our fan base, which is considered by many to be one of the most knowledgeable in all of college basketball.

As a Butler fan, here are the games I'm most excited about in the Big East:
1. Xavier (a heated rivalry renewed + they bring a loud bunch)
2. Marquette (former MCC rival + I suspect they will bring a decent contingent)
3. Georgetown (name, my mom taught me to hate Georgetown growing up as a Kentucky fan - so I do)
4. Villanova (name, this year's success)
5. St. John's (Indy-New York basketball rivalry has always been fun)
6. Creighton (if it wasn't for McDermitt, the Jays might be #9)
7. DePaul (will mean something to all of the Butler students from Chicago)
8. Seton Hall (one of my first clear basketball memories is the 1989 final four)
9. Providence (eh...doesn't move my needle)

As I said, no bashing, just my point of view.

I welcome fans of other teams to our palace of basketball history. Nothing pleases me more than to see other schools students walk out quietly into the crisp Indiana winter night in their "Buck Futler" t-shirts.

[HoosierPal]

From my perspective: my wife works a ticket window at Hinkle, one of my best friends works in the Butler athletic office.

Butler is always a hard sell. Alumni are scattered across the country, the students are out for winter break, the Pacers and IU both play earlier in the day (which takes some dual-buyers away), Colts playoff tickets are now on sale, etc. We have had plenty of ranked teams come into Hinkle. It's not like we've never played one.

Yes, Villanova is probably a 3rd or 4th tier name around central Indiana. Not bashing, just telling the truth. No alumni here, no history here. Xavier is a 1st tier name. Georgetown is probably 2nd tier. It has a lot to do with historical rivalries, alumni tie-ins, etc.

As a Butler grad and faithful fan, please stop the bashing of our city. Don't let certain trolls give you a bad feeling for our fan base, which is considered by many to be one of the most knowledgeable in all of college basketball.

As a Butler fan, here are the games I'm most excited about in the Big East:
1. Xavier (a heated rivalry renewed + they bring a loud bunch)
2. Marquette (former MCC rival + I suspect they will bring a decent contingent)
3. Georgetown (name, my mom taught me to hate Georgetown growing up as a Kentucky fan - so I do)
4. Villanova (name, this year's success)
5. St. John's (Indy-New York basketball rivalry has always been fun)
6. Creighton (if it wasn't for McDermitt, the Jays might be #9)
7. DePaul (will mean something to all of the Butler students from Chicago)
8. Seton Hall (one of my first clear basketball memories is the 1989 final four)
9. Providence (eh...doesn't move my needle)

As I said, no bashing, just my point of view.

I welcome fans of other teams to our palace of basketball history. Nothing pleases me more than to see other schools students walk out quietly into the crisp Indiana winter night in their "Buck Futler" t-shirts.

Well stated butlerguy. But beware, some of our eastern brothers don't want us telling the truth as to how we feel. I like your list, but on my list I would move Creighton up to maybe 4th, due to McDermott, and knowing that Creighton will snap up any scalped tickets they can find. I doubt if many St. John fans remember the Reggie Miller / Spike Lee theater. That was priceless. The Larry Johnson continuation call in 1999 still ranks as one of the worst calls of all time. It gave the Knicks the series.

[HoosierPal]

Here is Butler's all time record against the other nine Big East teams

Creighton, 3-4
DePaul, 1-5
Georgetown, 0-1
Marquette, 12-15
Providence, 0-0
Seton Hall, 0-0
St. Johns, 0-1
Villanova, 0-1
Xavier, 17-31

[XUFan09]

Hilarious, up until now there has been a unity about amongst NBE teams. First conference game hasn't even started yet and we are going for each other's throats.

Honestly, it's maybe a handful of posters bitching and everyone else wondering where the Villanova-Butler game thread went.

[Bulldawg]

I'm just hyped for a big week of Butler Basketball, best of luck to Villanova and Xavier.

[Westbrook36]

All this gasoline and gunpowder around, now all someone has to do is light a match. That didn't take long did it? Conference play comes around and we all hate each other.

So is anyone actually going to talk about the Nova/Butler game or is thread jacking east coast bias vs. mid-west bias, new guys vs. old guys, going to continue?

I'm interested in seeing if Nova learned from the loss in Carrier Dome, stop settling(chucking) easy 3's early in the shot clock. Move the ball, dribble drive and dish or get to the foul line. Take the open uncontested 3 after you've worked the clock some and moved the D around. Another benefit of being more patience on offense is being able to set up our 3/4 court trapping defense, besides turnovers this gets the other team out of synch and we play pretty good half-court defense on top of that. Also, I think it's in Nova's interest to speed this game up a little bit, would prefer a score in the 80's if possible.

[SJUREDMEN85]

From my perspective: my wife works a ticket window at Hinkle, one of my best friends works in the Butler athletic office.

Butler is always a hard sell. Alumni are scattered across the country, the students are out for winter break, the Pacers and IU both play earlier in the day (which takes some dual-buyers away), Colts playoff tickets are now on sale, etc. We have had plenty of ranked teams come into Hinkle. It's not like we've never played one.

Yes, Villanova is probably a 3rd or 4th tier name around central Indiana. Not bashing, just telling the truth. No alumni here, no history here. Xavier is a 1st tier name. Georgetown is probably 2nd tier. It has a lot to do with historical rivalries, alumni tie-ins, etc.

As a Butler grad and faithful fan, please stop the bashing of our city. Don't let certain trolls give you a bad feeling for our fan base, which is considered by many to be one of the most knowledgeable in all of college basketball.

As a Butler fan, here are the games I'm most excited about in the Big East:
1. Xavier (a heated rivalry renewed + they bring a loud bunch)
2. Marquette (former MCC rival + I suspect they will bring a decent contingent)
3. Georgetown (name, my mom taught me to hate Georgetown growing up as a Kentucky fan - so I do)
4. Villanova (name, this year's success)
5. St. John's (Indy-New York basketball rivalry has always been fun)
6. Creighton (if it wasn't for McDermitt, the Jays might be #9)
7. DePaul (will mean something to all of the Butler students from Chicago)
8. Seton Hall (one of my first clear basketball memories is the 1989 final four)
9. Providence (eh...doesn't move my needle)

As I said, no bashing, just my point of view.

I welcome fans of other teams to our palace of basketball history. Nothing pleases me more than to see other schools students walk out quietly into the crisp Indiana winter night in their "Buck Futler" t-shirts.

Well stated butlerguy. But beware, some of our eastern brothers don't want us telling the truth as to how we feel. I like your list, but on my list I would move Creighton up to maybe 4th, due to McDermott, and knowing that Creighton will snap up any scalped tickets they can find. I doubt if many St. John fans remember the Reggie Miller / Spike Lee theater. That was priceless. The Larry Johnson continual call in 1999 still ranks as one of the worst calls of all time. It gave the Knicks the series.

You mean LJ`s three from the corner hahahaha I loved that 4-pnt play, what a great call by the refs.
Reggie was annoying though, what was it 8pnts or 0 in 16secs or something like that in one year.
We had our wars.

[HoosierPal]

Well stated butlerguy. But beware, some of our eastern brothers don't want us telling the truth as to how we feel. I like your list, but on my list I would move Creighton up to maybe 4th, due to McDermott, and knowing that Creighton will snap up any scalped tickets they can find. I doubt if many St. John fans remember the Reggie Miller / Spike Lee theater. That was priceless. The Larry Johnson continual call in 1999 still ranks as one of the worst calls of all time. It gave the Knicks the series.

You mean LJ`s three from the corner hahahaha I loved that 4-pnt play, what a great call by the refs.
Reggie was annoying though, what was it 8pnts or 0 in 16secs or something like that in one year.
We had our wars.

Yep that is the one. Johnson was set, got hit by Antonio Davis, then dribbled once with a sidestep to his left, and shot. Four point play. Controversial is they way it went down in the history books.

Remember Starks headbutting Miller in 1993? I'm sure Reggie was totally innocent of any trash-talking on that one.

Yep those were fun times for about a decade. Just not the same with Carmello Anthony and Paul George these days.

[Lavinwood]

2 very good teams but I have Butler here. Nova was setting the world on fire until Cuse. Are they now cooling off? Law of averages slowing them down? Who knows. But I just feel like a team that lost a few very close tough match ups is due to beat a team that has won those tough close ones.