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Hearing more rumors about the possibility of a Fox Sports 1 day of games that will be part of a Big East season tipoff. My hope was that this could be part of the non-conference slate, but it sounds like it will be the first day of conference season perhaps New Years Eve or New Years Day. The risk is that the sports world is usually focused on college bowl games so we could get lost on those days. Anyone hearing anything else?

I doubt it would be NYE or NYD. Probably the weekend following all of that and being held Sat Jan 4th.

Rumor from the Creighton side is it might be new year's eve, Marquette at Creighton (just a rumor).

I see it like this with games spread out all day long:

Butler at GTown
Xavier at STJ
Seton Hall at Providence
Nova at DePaul
Marquette at Creighton

What's your reasoning behind those matchups?

New Year's Eve/Day seems like a really bad idea until you realize the coming weekend (4th and 5th) is an NFL playoff weekend. No way you want to go up against that. If I had my druthers I'd pick Saturday, December 28. Only thing going on that day would be some worthless pizzacrust.com bowl games.

When I was thinking about this as far as what the matchups should be I thought all 3 of the new teams should play at home to take advantage of their enthusiasm for their new beginning (and hopefully show off 3 sold-out arenas). And one game has to be at MSG to reinforce the idea that MSG = Big East. That left me with one more venue to pick and I went for Villanova because their on-campus arena is a great setting, a perfect college environment.

12:00...Seton Hall at St. John's...The new Big East starts at MSG. Closest thing to a local rivalry the new league has, onus on fans of both schools to realize the importance of filling the place to give the league a proper debut. Sell tickets cheap, make special packages, do whatever you have to do to fill the building.
2:15...DePaul at Xavier...Nobody's excited to play DePaul but someone has to, sorry Xavier.
4:30...Providence at Villanova...Old-school Big East rivalry in a great venue and these should be 2 very good teams.
6:45...Marquette at Butler...These 2 schools played a couple of decent games against each other last year right?
9:00...Georgetown at Creighton...The league's big-name school vs. the league's big-name player. Thank you and good night.

The previous weekend (Dec. 28) schools are still playing non conference games--Villanova/Syracuse, St. John's/Columbia, Providence/UMass, Depaul/Northwestern, etc.

So NYE/NYD seems like about the best time to start league play and it is definitely intriguing. I know I would love a late night game in Omaha to ring in the New Year if that is a possibility.

shupirate98 wrote:New Year's Eve/Day seems like a really bad idea until you realize the coming weekend (4th and 5th) is an NFL playoff weekend. No way you want to go up against that. If I had my druthers I'd pick Saturday, December 28. Only thing going on that day would be some worthless pizzacrust.com bowl games.

When I was thinking about this as far as what the matchups should be I thought all 3 of the new teams should play at home to take advantage of their enthusiasm for their new beginning (and hopefully show off 3 sold-out arenas). And one game has to be at MSG to reinforce the idea that MSG = Big East. That left me with one more venue to pick and I went for Villanova because their on-campus arena is a great setting, a perfect college environment.

12:00...Seton Hall at St. John's...The new Big East starts at MSG. Closest thing to a local rivalry the new league has, onus on fans of both schools to realize the importance of filling the place to give the league a proper debut. Sell tickets cheap, make special packages, do whatever you have to do to fill the building.
2:15...DePaul at Xavier...Nobody's excited to play DePaul but someone has to, sorry Xavier.
4:30...Providence at Villanova...Old-school Big East rivalry in a great venue and these should be 2 very good teams.
6:45...Marquette at Butler...These 2 schools played a couple of decent games against each other last year right?
9:00...Georgetown at Creighton...The league's big-name school vs. the league's big-name player. Thank you and good night.

Apology accepted, although Xavier is developing a nice little rivalry with Butler.

Even if New Year's Eve or New Year's Day aren't ideal for the Big East, it might be ideal for FS1. Do they have any high profile bowl games? They might want a sporting event of any special note rather than be a channel talking about what everyone else has on a busy day.

If this comes to fruition, I'd go with these match-ups.

12:00...Seton Hall at DePaul ... Give the two perceived cellar dwellers the opening tip and possible momentum to start season, they'll probably need it.
2:15...Providence at St. John's ... Old-school Big East rivalry in a MSG and these should be 2 good teams on the rise.
4:30...Villanova at Xavier ... Interesting match-up of Old Big East and New Big East, hopefully they haven't already met in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
6:45...Marquette at Butler ... These 2 schools played a couple of decent games against each other last year right?
9:00...Georgetown at Creighton ... The league's big-name school vs. the league's big-name player. Thank you and good night.