In State Rivals

So if you didn't catch my latest post on WestCoastConvo.com (BTW you should) I talk about how I really want to see a yearly competition between the four DIV-I schools in Oregon (Portland, Portland State, Oregon and Oregon State). Just a quick rundown of how it would all work

Games 1, 2, 3, and 4 will take place at a neutral site (I'm thinking Moda Center, but negotiable)
Game 1 will feature Portland or Portland State taking on Oregon or Oregon State
Game 2 will be played immeadiatly following game 1 and will feature Portland or Portland State taking on Oregon or Oregon State.
Games 3 and 4 will be on Saturday and will feature Portland and Portland State swapping opponents.
This may be confusing but let me explain.
For Example, if Portland takes on Oregon State in game 1,
Portland State will play Oregon in Game 2.
Game 3 would be Portland taking on Oregon
Game 4 would of course be Portland State vs. Oregon State.

That's phase 1. Phase 2 would be an alternating host game between Portland and Portland State.
Phase 3 would take place during Pac 12 play when Oregon faces off against Oregon State. I know they meet twice so the game that would count toward this "tournament" would alternate between when Oregon hosts, and Oregon State hosts.

I was just wanted to throw this out there and gather some comments, thoughts, questions, or other ideas.

In the OSU post-game radio broadcast, Coach Tinkle said he wants to have a yearly game in the Portland area. Said they were working on some things.

I really like the idea of an annual "tournament" between the teams... some sort of Cup to be presented to the winning team. Even if the games were not played at a neutral site, you could still do it, as long as all the games are played each year, at alternating venues (Something like the Timbers and the Cascadia Cup).

Here's a different, but related, idea that I suggested to UP in an e-mail to the AD last year. This wouldn't be a tournament, per se, but rather a three-day, multi-team event.

An annual, early-season event with all 12 D-I schools from the Northwest

UW (PAC12), WSU (PAC12), Gonzaga (WCC), Eastern Washington (BigSky), Seattle (WAC), UO (PAC12), OSU (PAC12), Portland (WCC), Portland State (BigSky), Idaho (BigSky), Idaho State (BigSky), Boise State (MtnWest)

With 5 conferences represented, you'd need to prevent teams within the same conference from playing each other. That wouldn't be too hard. Even the teams from the PAC12 and Big Sky (4 teams from each of those conferences) would have 8 potential opponents available.

It could be a 3-day event, each team plays 2 games. That would be 12 total games, 4 games per day (e.g. 12:30pm, 3:00, 5:30, 8:00). Rotate the location on a 4-year cycle: Seattle, Spokane, Boise, Portland.

I like it. It would not even need to be an exempt tournament. Or, find a way to schedule 3 games, and make it exempt!

I suppose opposition to it could be that with conference play starting earlier and earlier (and the number of OOC games decreasing), teams want to play teams from outside the NW (for recruiting purposes, etc).

I would rather see teams play in something like this than, say, our current schedule with SIU-E and Montana State...

Not to be a Debby downer, but the history is that the PAC teams haven't been willing to play a portland team more than 5-6 times since 2008 between the two teams.

What's the plan to make them think playing us every year is in their interests?

Geezaldinho wrote:Not to be a Debby downer, but the history is that the PAC teams haven't been willing to play a portland team more than 5-6 times since 2008 between the two teams.

What's the plan to make them think playing us every year is in their interests?

Most of their donor bases is in the Portland area.  That's gotta be something to work with.  Hoping anyway. I don't know if there would be enough interest to justify having a game in the Memorial Coliseum.  If we couldn't even get 3500 in the Chiles Center on a Saturday night . . .

VillaGorilla wrote:I don't know if there would be enough interest to justify having a game in the Memorial Coliseum.  If we couldn't even get 3500 in the Chiles Center on a Saturday night . . .

Seems like 2,000 (including the student section) is about the upper limit of how many actual Pilot fans will come out to any game, regardless of opponent. To get more than 2,000 fans in Chiles, we need to play a team that attracts its own fans (recent examples: BYU, UNLV, WSU, OSU, and even St. Mary's). My impression is that the extra attendance (above the 2,000 Pilot fans) at the Gonzaga game is a mix of their fans showing up, plus a group of curious people who just want to see a top team but otherwise have no allegiance to the Pilots.

Here's a simple template to follow! They've been doing it in Indiana for the past 3 years: Butler, Purdue, Indiana and Notre Dame play a double-header on the Saturday before Christmas each year in downtown Indianapolis. It is scheduled to continue through at least 2019.

Because Indiana and Purdue are both in the Big-10, they never play each other. This year it's Butler-Indiana and Purdue-ND. Next year it will be Butler-Purdue and Indiana-ND.

http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2014/12/19/crossroads-classic-popular-support-from-schools-involved/20647317/

It would be easy to make this happen with OSU, UO, UP, PSU every year.