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From ESPN:

The conference is hoping to build rivalries and will protect one rivalry for the final weekend of the regular season. But the conference wouldn't say which one until the schedule is finalized. The teams haven't been notified yet of which rivalry was protected for the final weekend of the regular season.

There have been discussions here about which teams could be rivals and it looks like we will see that come to fruition.

I suspect they will match the three new schools against one of the C7 rather than against each other, so here is my guess:

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

Butler-Xavier has been a great rivalry for years. To not have them play on a "rivalry weekend" just so they can try and manufacture a Butler-DePaul rivalry just does not make sense. I would imagine they would go with established rivalries for this slate of games.

admin wrote:I suspect they will match the three new schools against one of the C7 rather than against each other, so here is my guess:

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

Seems a little odd to me that Creighton would be our first and last game. As we are playing them in the NYE game.

I feel like this was done a little bit in the existing Big East if not necessarily rivalry games Marquette has generally had its most interesting games at the end of the season.

MUSeashells&Balloons wrote:

admin wrote:I suspect they will match the three new schools against one of the C7 rather than against each other, so here is my guess:

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

Seems a little odd to me that Creighton would be our first and last game. as we are playing them in the NYE game.

On some level I agree although that would be adjusted in future years. If Marquette and Creighton perform as expected it wouldn't be bad to have them playing for a Big East title on the final weekend.

Whoever gets DePaul will probably bitch but that's actually who I'd want to play to end the season before the Big East tournament.

Dew wrote:Whoever gets DePaul will probably bitch but that's actually who I'd want to play to end the season before the Big East tournament.

Marquette-DePaul is already the strongest rivalry either team has in the conference. Might not be a shiny game now, but if both teams are on their feet it will be the preferred pairing. I'm happy with that for a rivalry weekend instead of trying to create a new one. Otherwise, Butler-Xavier seems reasonable, so Creighton might be paired cross country. When two more are added to the conference, it might look like Creighton vs St. Louis and that East team vs the new add over there.

Reading that quote, though, is it definitely one per team or is it just one rivalry for a marquee slot? It sounds like just one game without the part about developing rivalries.

I think PC is the odd man out on the east coast.

SHU - St. John's. The NYC draw.
Georgetown - Villanova. I think this is pretty much accepted as the biggest "name" rivalry in the conference.

I struggle where to put Xavier/Marquette/DePaul. I think that Xavier/Marquetter are clearly the two marquee midwest teams, but the Chicago draw is always there for DePaul.
I would probably go with:
Xavier - Marquette. The two best midwest teams.
Butler - DePaul. Geographically similar.

But then that leaves Providence and Creighton? WTF???

Wouldn't surprise me to see them do something like:
Providence - Villanova
SHU - SJU
Georgetown - Marquette
Xavier - DePaul
Creighton - Butler

The Johnnies are going to get either Seton Hall or Georgetown. The Quette will likely get DePaul. Not sure how the rest will play out. If g'town does not get St. John's they will get Nova. It doesn't really matter much since we have a round robin schedule.

Creighton will get Xavier or Marquette.