Musketeer Madness

If there is one program that I consider a true rival, in a positive sense, in the A-10 it is St. Joes. Of course, the dump is the school that we've played longer and more than anyone, but for there to be a true rivalry, shouldn't there be something brought to it from the other side, other than a lot of screaming?

First of all, I love Phil Martelli. He is a great ambassador for the league, is smart, clever, funny and is a great basketball coach. Secondly, Xavier and St. Joes have played some of the most memorable games that this league has seen since Xavier joined it. The game at St. Joes in DWest's senior year, the game at Cintas where Delonte West did not miss a shot, the A-10 tourney game that same year that launched "The Run" for Xavier, the A-10 championship game in 2006. Apart from those, almost every game between the two has been super competition.

Besides the closeness of the games, I have a great respect for St. Joseph's. I have no negative feelings toward them. I feel like they also truly respect Xavier. To me, there is no rancor in this rivalry, it is as healthy as a college competition can be, and it is a competition at a high level. St. Joes brings something to the table and enhances the league. They also aren't afraid to invest in their program within their means as they are performing an expansion on Alumni Gym.

I've been to games at St Joes, like the place, the school and the people. Good luck to them- except when they play us, and especially today.

Agree MOR. It seemed like GW would be the rivalry as you suggest, but they have been too up and down. Who's respected more to college basketball at the national level - Martinelli or Miller? St Joe's seems to get respect - how do they get recruits? Any movement towards a better arena or anything like that?

The worst thing about UC's downfall and attempt at cleaning up their program is that they are less of a threat than UD. Previously, I never disliked UD - they were just irrelevant. I wish it would go back to that, because that's even better than for us to pay them the attention we currently do.

If you've never been to St. Joes, you wouldn't know that they are severely land-locked in a predominantly residential neighborhood. There isn't a whole lot of land for them to expand to, however...

They are, after this season, performing an expanion/renovation to Alumni Gym. The most they can probably expand it to is about 4,000 to 4,500 seats. There just is no more room, plus even if they had the land, they could never get the City approvals for a bigger expansion because of the lack of parking and use of residential streets to park cars. They are doing about as much as they can do.

I think that they are going to play a bunch of their games next year in the Palaestra. It would be cool to see an XU/St.J game there.

I agree. I like Phil Martelli a lot too. He never seems to bash any of the schools in the league or make out of bounds comments and he's one of the first to defend the league nationally (like 03 against the moron that is billy packer).

I like Martelli. He's a great coach, runs a great program, and since Gillen's departure has been the most entertaining coach on the circuit (see: today's post-game comments). I'm not sure that St. Joe's would be much of a rival without him (unlike XU, SJU really seems to be defined by its coach). Because of geography Dayton may be a bigger game to most, but but as long as Martellis is at SJU I think they will be our biggest rivalry, basketball-wise.