The game will be good. When isn't it? Xavier-UC will always be pure thump and grudge, regardless of what precedes it.
But the rivalry has lost some edge.
The Crosstown Shootout is tonight. I think. The notion of the best in-city college basketball battle in America should not be so vague. Not this close to tipoff. But it is. What do you expect when you hold the thing before Thanksgiving?
Playing the Shootout in November is like staging the Super Bowl in August.
''Circumstances,'' Xavier athletic director Jeff Fogelson calls it. There were scheduling problems. Originally, the schools thought a mid-January date would work. That was until Xavier agreed to play Tulane on Jan. 16, in a made-for-toob event called the Atlantic 10-Conference USA Challenge.
They wanted a mid-December date, too, but exams killed that. So here we are.
When it was a grudge
When I was younger and knew everything, I wished a perpetual blood feud upon Xavier and UC. When Bob Huggins and former Muskies coach Pete Gillen engaged in a royal post-game dust-up a few seasons back, I was the one in the ring, holding the round cards.
It was the height of Three Stooges etiquette. It was cool. In a WWF sort of way.
Back in the old days, the Shootout was a fight on a barge. And that was before the game. Now, it's pretty much tea for two. Maybe it wasn't better when the whole thing threatened to become a European soccer match. But it was more interesting.
The hype is dead. No smoke-blowing on the radio. WLW is obligated to the Bengals on Sunday morning and Monday night. No screaming headlines. The papers also have football to bother with. Even the rude fans have bored themselves to death.
I can't remember the last time I heard a Xavier fan suggest the average UC player had the brain power of a can opener. UC fans no longer wonder when Xavier might schedule the Munchkins.
The rivalry has matured. Like it or not. John McEnroe has become Pete Sampras. The gloves are on. The quality of play has overtaken the hype. ''It has gone from the most important game to an important non-conference game,'' Fogelson says.
Fact is, Xavier and UC don't need each other so much anymore.
''There's validity to that,'' says Xavier coach Skip Prosser. ''It's still a big game. But in my heart of hearts, I believe the most important games for both teams will be in March.''
Both schools talk about playing the game in December. ''The first or second week,'' says Fogelson. ''That gets it out of the way.'' Fogelson didn't mean to give the game the back of his hand. It just came out that way.
New priorities
There are bigger and better things now. When UC is ranked No.1 in America, losing to Xavier is not acceptable. When Xavier is playing UMass and Temple, Cincinnati becomes another name on the marquee.
As Prosser says, ''Because of our schedule now, we're playing so many quote-unquote big games, it would be ludicrous to put all our eggs in one basket.''
''Not many years ago, the thinking was, 'Great, we have the UC game at home' because it could be the only sellout,'' Fogelson says. Now, Xavier could sell out Saturday, against Miami. UC has sold out its entire home schedule.
The rivalry has aged nicely. The hype is over the hill.
Is that good? I guess.
But nobody complained in the 1970s, when the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys perpetrated fine malice upon each other. It was the best rivalry in the NFL because both teams excelled. Also, because the participants hated each others' guts.
Everyone in Dallas thought Redskins coach George Allen was Nixon-with-a-whistle; in D.C., we all wondered when Tom Landry would blow a microchip.
''This game,'' suggests Fogelson, ''is settling into the focus where it should.''
He's probably right. Talk is cheap. Action is better. But if we get action and talk, we won't complain.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments. Call him at 768-8454.
Published Nov. 26, 1996.