You’re Nuts: What is the best rivalry in men’s college basketball?

It’s July, so you know Bucketheads are talking basketball. In honor of the Land-Grant Holy Land theme “This team in the North,“We talk about college basketball rivalries.

Last week we debated which area of ​​the game we believe deserves the most attention from the men’s hoops team. Connor talked about on-ball defense while Justin talked about overall consistency. Connor wiped the floor on that one, garnering 91 percent of the vote, while Justin got nine votes.

Here is the updated ranking after 109 weeks:

After 109 weeks:

Connor – 47 years old
Justin – 46
Other- 12

(There were four ties)

And now let’s talk about this week’s topic.

Question of the day: What is the best rivalry in college basketball?

Connor: Cincinnati and Xavier

Photo by Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

If you’re not from Ohio or a fan of the old Big East, you may not realize how venomous, nasty and malicious the Cincinnati-Xavier rivalry is.

Once nicknamed the “Crosstown Shootout,” the rivalry that began in 1927 became increasingly hate-filled over the next century. Cincinnati is a public school and Xavier is a private school. The two schools are separated by less than three miles, making it one of the closest rivalries in college athletics based on distance from one institution to the other.

There were technical fouls and/or ejections in every game between 2008 and 2010, but things really came to a head in 2011, when an all-out brawl broke out at the Cintas Center, Xavier’s home arena. In the final seconds of the first half, Cincinnati goalkeeper Octavius ​​Ellis got into the game with Xavier’s Mark Lyons and the two had to be separated. Before the start of the second half, both teams were warned that any further action would result in sending-offs.

Xavier was well on its way to a blowout victory, and with 18 seconds remaining in the game, a Xavier player confronted the Cincinnati bench to let them know that the 23-led Musketeers were going to win the game (something along those lines , perhaps worded a little differently). This triggered the Cincinnati bench and an all-out brawl ensued.

Players were punched, kicked, choked and one Xavier player’s head was even stomped on. Several players were ejected and suspended from future games, and the 2011 edition of the Crosstown Shootout was cut short with 9.4 seconds left. Xavier won, 76-53.

The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office considered filing charges, but ultimately chose not to. Due to the 2011 brawl, the Shootout was renamed the “Crosstown Classic” for several years before reverting to the Crosstown Shootout.

I reached out to Austin Elmore, the producer at ESPN 1530 Radio in Cincinnati, to find out what makes the Crosstown Shootout such a nasty, heated and underrated rivalry in college sports.

“There is legitimate vitriol between the two (schools). It’s the only hatred I’ve encountered that reminds me state of ohio and TTUN. It could be May 2, and people from UC and XU are exchanging blows,” he said.

“UC fans like to say that Xavier isn’t even in Cincinnati, it’s in Norwood. This isn’t technically true after evaluating the cards – which is kind of funny because the University of Cincinnati is in Clifton. It’s a ridiculous rivalry.

Justin: Duke and North Carolina

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

This is the one you think of when you think of college basketball rivalries. You think of JJ Redick, Tyler Hansbrough, Jay Williams, Shane Battier, Caleb Love and many other players. You think about college students camping, Cameron Crazies going crazy, and Tobacco Road. The two teams have played 260 times since 1920. North Carolina leads the all-time series 143-117.

There’s not much to say with this one. These two teams hate each other, the fanbases hate each other, and the mascots hate each other.

A 2000 poll by ESPN ranked the basketball rivalry as the third greatest North American sports rivalry, and “Sports Illustrated on Campus” named it the No. 1 “hottest rivalry” in basketball. college ball and the No. 2 overall rivalry in its November report. 18, issue 2003. Obviously, a significant factor in this hatred is the proximity of the two universities: they are located only ten miles apart along US Highway 15-501 (also known as Tobacco Road) or eight miles apart in a straight line.

As a fun little tradition, one day before a Duke-Carolina basketball game, The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, publishes a fake cover page for that day’s edition with the headline The Daily Tar Hole. It contains fake news making fun of The Daily Tar Heel and the North Carolina Tar Heels.

The Daily Tar Heel usually publishes former columnist Ian Williams’ “Insider’s Guide to Hate Duke” for both basketball games each year. There is an agreement that if Duke wins the first game, The Daily Tar HeelIt is the header is printed in Duke blue, and if Carolina wins the first game, THE the ChronicleIt is the masthead is painted Caroline blue. The losing school’s newspaper must also place the other school’s logo in a prominent location and state that the winning school is “always the best.”

Anything that deep in tradition and complexity is a huge rivalry.