One of the greatest aspects of college basketball is a high stake game between two schools who have been rivals for years. Whether you enjoy rooting over zealously for your team one game a year or rooting for the failure of your rival team throughout the season, your adrenaline as a spectator peaks at your team’s annual rivalry basketball game. In Cincinnati, Ohio there are two major college basketball teams; the University of Cincinnati Bearcats and the Xavier University Musketeers. The rivalry between the two schools is better known as the Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout to the people of Cincinnati. The city of Cincinnati, having been without an NBA team since the Cincinnati Royals left in 1972, clings to college basketball to fulfill the basketball void, setting up the perfect storm for an intense rivalry. The two teams have met for a total of eighty-one times since the 1927-28 season, and have been playing annually since 1945-46 season (JBBo para. 2). Just like with any rivalry, both teams and their fans are constantly trying to prove which program is the better program. In examining the close proximity and differences of the two campuses, the city of Cincinnati, and the history of the rivalry, it becomes evident that the rivalry that the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University hold is the best in in college basketball.

It is no surprise that sports rivalries are deepened when the two schools in question are in the same state. However, Cincinnati and Xavier are not just in the same state, nor are they merely in the same city; the two schools are only 2.7 miles apart (para. 19). This creates a rivalry in recruiting as well as both schools try to get the best recruits from the same city while also proving that their school is better than the other Cincinnati team. Fans also run the almost definite chance of running into fans of the other team while living their everyday lives giving the opportunity to increase the animosity between the two teams. 

While both schools are located in Cincinnati, that is about the only similarity between the two schools. The universities are fundamentally opposite from their core. Xavier is a privately funded Jesuit school while Cincinnati is a flagship school funded by the state of Ohio. While this may not seem like much, ESPN writer Bomani Jones believes the strongest rivalries come between a “privately funded” school and a school funded by the state (qtd. in Surangi, 1913). These differences polarize the fans of the two teams even more which, in hand, strengthens the rivalry. Besides funding, the sizes of the two schools are drastically different with Cincinnati totaling 24,000 undergrads while Xavier only has 4,500. Even the reputations of the two schools even add to the hatred felt in the rivalry. The two programs’ reputations are even polar opposites. The University of Cincinnati Bearcats received the “convicts” reputation under coach Bob Huggins from 1989-2205. This is due to Huggins focus on basketball players who were disinterested in academics and often found themselves running into legal trouble. The Bearcats’ colors of black and red also helps drive home this reputation. The Xavier Musketeers, however, sport the refreshing color combination of navy blue and white, rarely find themselves in any type of trouble giving them the “good guys” reputation (JBBo para. 17-8). There are not many schools with as many differences as these two do while also sharing the same city. These differences make the desire to win the Shootout even greater. 

While the two schools seemingly could not be any more different, they do have one event binding them together year after year, the Crosstown Shootout. Art Markman, a psychology and marketing professor at the University of Texas, suggests that the “frequency” with which rival schools face each other has a direct correlation with the strength of the rivalry (para. 15). The fan base of two programs that play each other every year, such as Xavier and Cincinnati, will only grow further and further apart, increasing not only the divide between the two fan bases, but the team as well. Markman also believes that there are strong ties between sports rivalries and family traditions. Family traditions that are kept alive grow stronger and accumulate more history as time goes on while bringing the family members closer together (para. 2). The Crosstown Shootout has been accumulating history for eighty-one seasons, strengthening the tradition of the two schools facing off. 

Many Cincinnatians are graduates of one of either Cincinnati or Xavier and make sure to instill their views upon their kids at an early age. People who attend college in the Cincinnati will never leave the city after graduating, raising a family of Bearcats or Musketeers. People often feel the need to take rivalries serious and pass on traditions to “create and define the individual’s place in society” (Tyler 229). This leads to years of built up hatred towards the rival opponent. In her book, Fanaticus, Justine Gubar discusses the research of a psychology professor at Murray State, Daniel Wann, about a term he calls team identification. This term measures the level that a fan identifies with his or her favorite sports team. Wann’s survey conducted on five hundred college students is also mentioned in her book. The research tested the team identification level of college students for their high school’s sports teams. Wann concluded that high school graduates that went to college near their hometown had higher team identification levels than those who left their city (Gubar 73). This explains why a graduate of either UC or XU that grew up in Cincinnati and stayed there after graduation would have an extremely high team identification level and want to pass that passion on to their kids.

Parents can instill their aggressive sport attitudes onto their kids through the way that they teach their kids to play sports. Coaches often become so greedy for wins that they lose focus of the kids’ safety and teach these kids in ways that “conflict with the best safety practices” (73). Coaches are often viewed as parental figures by athletes and will often adopt similar views as their coaches. Parents then often support these violent teachings from coaches in order to “toughen up” their kids (73). At a young age, these kids learn that sports should be played with aggression, therefore they will grow up rooting for aggressive play. Kids in Cincinnati learn at a young age that aggression towards the other Cincinnati team is not only accepted, but encouraged. 

Since the game is held between two rivals that have shared the same stomping grounds for a year since the last time they played each other proves to result in a more aggressive game than usual. Communications professors Arthur A. Raney, Florida State University, and William Kinnally, University of Central Florida, surveyed 568 individuals to measure the violence perceived by the viewers of a football game between two rival teams. They asked the viewers questions to measure the level of violence they perceived in rival games versus non-rival games. Their research suggests that viewers “clearly perceived rivalry games to be more violent than nonrivalry games” (Raney 311). The violence perceived is a result of the strength of the fan support for both teams. A fan’s attitude toward their favorite team can become “internalized to the extent that the attitudes can be manifested without conscience intent or awareness” (Wenger 579). This perceived violence and a culture that accepts it can lead to years of built up aggression that could end in a catastrophic explosion. The explosion that came for the Crosstown Shootout finally came in the 2011 rivalry game, later dubbed “The Brawl”. The “volatile” atmosphere was created by the never ending hostility of the fans and fueled by comments made by players of both teams about other players off the court in the days leading up to the game (Anderson 13). Any rivalry that has an atmosphere hostile enough to foster such an ugly event is a true testament to the importance of the rivalry to the players and fans. The rivalry is forced upon the citizens of Cincinnati their whole lives and taught to win at all expenses, only making the game mean even more to the entire city.

The most vital and enjoyable part of any sports rivalry, is the actual game between the two schools. Almost all research conducted on the psychology behind rivalries point out the history of the rivalry as a major component that makes certain rivalries stand out from others. The overall Crosstown Shootout record favors Cincinnati forty-nine to thirty-two (JBBo, para 2). This is in part due to Cincinnati’s relative dominance in the beginning years of the shootout. The Bearcats had a 34-12 overall record against the Musketeers in their first forty-six matchups. (Paul VL para. 3). A run such as this in the beginning of what would later become an intense rivalry proves to be hard to overcome. During the span of those forty-six games, the University of Cincinnati basketball program won its two only national championships in 1961 and again in 1962. Xavier has never been passed the Elite 8 in its history while Cincinnati has made multiple visits to the Final 4 and the championship game.

While it takes time to overcome such a deficit, Xavier has been cutting that lead since the 1980s. Of the past thirty-three Crosstown Shootouts, twenty have belonged to Xavier. Not only this, but for anyone under the age of forty-three, Xavier has a winning record against Cincinnati in their lifetime (para. 2). Xavier has not been able to possess a winning record in the shootout quite yet, but certainly seem to be on the right path to achieve just that milestone. Seeing a tie in the overall record between the two programs would greatly benefit the two teams, schools, city and the entire rivalry itself.

Xavier has been able to take care of closing that deficit in the past by focusing on its future and looking for the best recruits to fill the roster each season. Cincinnati’s head coach, Mick Cronin, has had three top one hundred recruits in his coaching career while Xavier has three top one hundred recruits on its 2017 roster (para. 3). Another behind the scene aspect that can help create a road to success is generating revenue for the program to use to better itself. Xavier’s basketball program alone generates more revenue at twelve million dollars than the University of Cincinnati’s basketball and football programs combined (para. 4). A major contributor to this may be that Xavier does not have a football program, but they generate more money for themselves nonetheless. Xavier’s recent run on Cincinnati may increase the significance of the Crosstown Shootout to people across the nation.

While the Crosstown Shootout seems to be on the rise, it does not get nearly as much attention nationally as a rivalry in the neighboring state of Kentucky. This would be the rivalry between the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville. An article written by a Kentucky native describes why he believes that the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry is the best in college basketball. He immediately mentions the close proximity of the two campuses being “less than 100 miles” apart (Hughes para. 7). If the proximity of two rivals means a lot in determining the strength of the rivalry, 2.7 miles seems to make their distance seem less impressive. Admittedly, Kentucky and Louisville share the same state and run the risk of seeing rival fans in their daily lives which could spark extra emotion into the rivalry. However, that is nothing compared to sharing the same city, school, friends, and even families with a rival fan. Not many cities feel the intensity of a rivalry within its own boarders. Mike Bobinski, the Athletic Director at Purdue University, who witnessed “fierce rivalries” at Navy and Notre Dame, described the Crosstown Shootout as “different, because of the intensity, the proximity and the fact their alums and our alums live, work and play together. It's something that you never get away from" (qtd. in Anderson para. 6). The atmosphere is truly unrivaled. The homegrown, smaller program feel of the Crosstown Shootout is what takes it a step above Kentucky and Louisville’s rivalry.

The article also acknowledges that there is much more to a rivalry than just a similar home turf, as he turns towards the coaches. Both Kentucky’s coach, John Calipari, and Louisville’s coach, Rick Patino, are highly respected men among the basketball world. The article describes the two coaches as “two of the best minds in college basketball” (Hughes para. 9). Of course by looking at the numbers this is true. The coaches have won numbers of titles and coaching awards. The author then describes the help that Calipari gets by signing recruits that are often “one-and-done prospects” to help mold his teams (para. 10). Calipari uses the teams reputation as an NBA prep team and his recruiting skills to help him achieve these great accolades to boost the importance of their rivalry. However, Xavier’s head coach Chris Mack won the national Coach of the Year Award in 2011 without a single player that had the ability to declare for the NBA after their freshman season. Both Mack and Cronin have been able to build their success off of prospects that are not well known nationally and manage to constantly appear in the top 25 rankings and the NCAA Tournament every year. The coaches in Cincinnati work harder to make their players become a team that can win big games.

While the Crosstown Shootout seems to remain under the radar nationally and is often overlooked in the discussion of top rivalries in college basketball, it may be intentional. Ohio native, Mike Titus, describes the rivalry as “unapologetically local” and feels that Cincinnatians believe that the Shootout is “belongs to Cincinnati and [are] not interested in selling” (para. 3). The rivalry gives the people of Cincinnati something that is unique and makes the people feel closer to their city and want it to remain that way. The states surrounding Cincinnati all have rivalries that are considered some of the biggest rivalries in the country. Kentucky has the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry, Ohio has the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, and Indiana has the Indiana-Purdue rivalry. However, Cincinnati “made its residents choose between UC and XU” (para. 4). The rivalry is smaller on the national scale and closer to home, making it even more unique and even more special to the people of Cincinnati. Many people leave the Xavier-Cincinnati rivalry out of their top college basketball rivalries. People use proximity, stark differences, historical cities, success of programs, and the history of the rivalry game when talking about other top rivalries in college basketball but always ignore Xavier and Cincinnati in those categories. Whatever the reason, the localness of the rivalry just might be why everyone in Cincinnati believes wholeheartedly that the Crosstown Shootout is the best rivalry in all of college basketball.
