Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Georgetown and Syracuse to renew their rivalry

Michael Carter-Williams, D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera

AP Photo

AP

We’ve gotten back one of the rivalries that conference realignment cost us.

Georgetown and Syracuse announced on Tuesday that they will be reigniting what was the most intense rivalry in the Big East prior to it’s breakup. The deal that was signed was for a four-year, home-and-home series beginning in 2015-2016. The first game will be played in Washington, D.C.

“Georgetown against Syracuse is one of the great rivalries in college basketball,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said in a release. “From Game One all the way through our last game, the passion, emotion and intensity of this rivalry is hard to match. We look forward to renewing the series that has generated some of the great moments in our sport.”
RELATED: What makes this rivalry so special?

“In the early days of the Big East Conference, the Syracuse-Georgetown matchup quickly developed into one of college basketball’s best rivalries,” said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. “The games in that series have been played at a remarkably high level over the years. We’re looking forward to the challenge of playing Georgetown again.”

Realignment was an emotional drain on college hoops, but there is something to be learned from Georgetown and Syracuse: don’t let the money-grab that football and television deals inspired ruin our sport. I’m looking at you, Missouri and Kansas. And you, Pitt and West Virginia.

If your rivalry is so strong and means so much to the fan bases that it actually has a nickname, put the petty grievances aside and play the damn game.

Now if we could only find a way to make Georgetown think it’s a good idea to play Maryland, too.