Syracuse - Siena Potential Rivalry??

[gangreenman]

Just in the midst of procrastinating right now, and I started thinking about SU's basketball season for next year. I know we'll play Memphis at home at some point, and we're in the 2k classic with UNC, Ohio St., and Cal at the Garden... And knowing Boeheim, we're probably not going to see us playing too many tough road games in the non-con. However, I got to thinking about some tough home games against mid mjrs that could be scheduled... Like last year vs. Cleveland State and Cornell, and couldnt stop myself from thinking about Siena becoming a possibility.

Siena is obviously still an up and coming program, returning all eligible players from a rd 2 tournament team a year ago, looking to make a splash and tap into the NY/NJ/CONN recruiting pipeline currently dominated by school the likes of Syracuse, Uconn, and Pitt. I am intrigued about the potential of one day Syracuse-Siena potentially becoming a nice CNY rivalry before conference play starts. The schools are close (give or take an hour drive), so scheduling one game per season against each other shouldnt be much of a problem at all.

Anyway, im done ranting and AM going to actually start working at some point...But anyone have any thoughts?

[uart]

It could be fun. One thing that 'Cuse lacks is a lot of strong local rivals. Villanova has the Big5 every year to provide some fun rivalries with the other Philly schools.

We've been pretty dominant of-late in Big 5 play, but the city teams always play hard and give us a game early on. Every so often one of them will have a big year, too.

So, yes. I think 'Cuse should cultivate some local rivalries that can become mainstays of the pre-conference schedule.

Villanova vs. St. Joes is always a fun game because 1) it's a tradition (one of our oldest rivalry games), 2) there's always a great interaction between home and away fans and 3) we gave it a cool nickname (the Holy War).

[gangreenman]

It could be fun. One thing that 'Cuse lacks is a lot of strong local rivals. Villanova has the Big5 every year to provide some fun rivalries with the other Philly schools.

We've been pretty dominant of-late in Big 5 play, but the city teams always play hard and give us a game early on. Every so often one of them will have a big year, too.

So, yes. I think 'Cuse should cultivate some local rivalries that can become mainstays of the pre-conference schedule.

Villanova vs. St. Joes is always a fun game because 1) it's a tradition (one of our oldest rivalry games), 2) there's always a great interaction between home and away fans and 3) we gave it a cool nickname (the Holy War).

Yeah, we sorta have something with Cornell, but considering the all time record of that series is like 150 something to like 10 Im not sure if thats exactly a rivalry. I think the up-and coming of Siena is a great opportunity to begin to cultivate a rivalry. We haven't really had a non BE NY rival team since St Bonaventure back in the 60's and 70's....