(03-18-2021 09:11 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  

(03-16-2021 01:37 PM)esayem Wrote:  It looks like DePaul and Loyola are both in the North Side, UIC is in the West Side, while Univ. of Chicago and poor ol’ Chicago St. are in the South Side.

I’m not sure what separates DePaul from Loyola. Good question.

DePaul generally is a little wealthier since Lincoln Park is a pretty affluent part of the city. Loyola is closer to Northwestern and the suburbs so while they're on the same train line it's more difficult for them to build a fan base then DU all things being the same. It's not like they're complete equals but there's a lot more in common between them than Villanova and Drexel.

UIC has a lot of potential in theory but less so in practice. Great location in a hot part of the city, but they're a commuter school with traditionally limited fan or financial support. UC is DIII and irrelevant in athletics. CSU is the poster child of administrative incompetence and shouldn't be in DI altogether.

Aside from Loyola, the Chicagoland school with the most potential to contend in their conference is perhaps NIU. Nice arena and the MAC is pretty flat in terms of resources, it's been a pretty lousy program historically but a good coach could change that.

Chicago is a weird college sports market overall. Relatively small support for local or in-state teams compared to other big cities but you do have a lot of fans who went to Big Ten or other big midwest schools who are into their team without being local. Most of that is because the local programs mostly suck, but also since geographically speaking all of the DI programs in the entire area about besides NIU are within a 15x2 mile stretch between Evanston and downtown. Millions of people out there are at least half an hour away from the nearest major college program.

One of my best friends lived in Rogers Park (near Loyola). It's a nice campus. I respect what Porter Moser has done.

I saw a high school game at the UIC arena one time when I lived in chi Chicago.

DePaul truly should be "the" men's hoops programs in the Windy City. I'm biased, but DU is in the Big East and has a strong men's basketball history (though not recent).