Home and Home with Florida

[Towney007]

And I like having the Garden on the schedule, but i'd much rather have those games as home and homes.

With all the travel we have in conference, it's crazy to not be swallowing up as many home and homes vs good, local programs as much as possible.

I could care less is Boston and NYC fell into the ocean.

 

[Towney007]

Boston makes more sense than New York but I agree, on principle, college sports should be played on campys

It's not even on principle lol. I don't know the dollars and cents of how they make MSG work - but we're in the AAC, making less revenue w/ BE money drying up and people being generally disinterested in your conference foes so your attendance is down... and a huge travel budget to boot. So expenses are way up and revenues are down.

So you take all that into account and you're telling me we need to pay more games in the Garden or in Boston and leave revenue on the table in Hartford or on-campus? So WHO can go again?

So to me it's not a 'principle' thing, it's a dollars and cents, basic common sense thing.

 

[Waquoit]

Boston makes more sense than New York but I agree, on principle, college sports should be played on campys

But big regular season college basketball games have been played off-campus forever.

 

[Scrutiner]

Confirmed

Do you mean to say that if we're in the same tournament it's possible we might play any of the other 7 teams?

 

[BFieldHusky]

Do you mean to say that if we're in the same tournament it's possible we might play any of the other 7 teams?

I would guess that UConn, Miami, Xavier and Florida will not play each other in the 1st round. They will all play one of the other teams: Penn St, St. Joe's, Towson or Missouri State.

 

[Scrutiner]

According to PC fans on Twitter UConn is afraid to schedule them because they beat us in a charity exhibition game last year. Not kidding, this is actually what one of them is trying to explain to me right now.

Don't get too cocky. Have you watched them this year? Lots of big guards and forwards and no seniors. And, the guard many here lamented flipping to PC hardly plays as a sophomore.

 

[HuskyHawk]

not to sound like a Syracuse fan, but what would we get out of playing BC? they are not a threat when it comes to new england recruits and while they would be better than the UMKCs and UMLowells of the world they arent helping our SOS much either.

after they refused us any shot at joining the ACC they can wither away in conference mediocrity forever i don't want anything to do with them. the only school i hate more than BC is Syracuse but at least beating Syracuse brings me joy.

We get a lot. We get a drivable road game for our fans, especially fans like me in the Boston area. We get a potentially decent RPI team, and at least somebody who's name looks better than UMKC. Plus there is good will. They didn't help up get in the ACC last time. Do you think we might want as many friends in the ACC as possible for the next time? Forget the past. Look forward and let that determine our actions.

Side note: love the Florida games. Great idea.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Boston makes even less sense. Why would a team from Rhode Island and a team from Connecticut give Massachusetts that gate?

Honest to god - what's with the obsession with not making money? I mean I guess i'd go, but if I have to travel, i'd literally rather travel to DD Arena and pay Providence $25 a ticket to keep the rivalry going and enjoy the campus crowds more than I'd like going to Boston and sitting behind a bunch of 70 year olds and their walkers.

Pretty sure Boston Garden holds more people than the Dunk or XL. If we want neutral site, Boston will be better than MSG by far with those two teams. Me, I'd rather 4 games in our normal arenas. The Dunk is easy for me.

 

[Scrutiner]

PC vs. BC yesterday was half full and a pro-PC crowd. BC just cannot draw

5453 fans crowded into the 8,000+ seat Conte Forum. All of New England's finest basketball fans North and East of Connecticut.

 

[Guapo]

But big regular season college basketball games have been played off-campus forever.

I don’t really want to get into the on campus vs off campus debate; I will take issue with any game involving PC being labeled as “big”

 

[Scrutiner]

I hate being a debbie downer, but us vs. Providence at MSG is... weird.

I get Mohegan and that's an option, but I'd much rather they play the games at home each and collect all the revenue from it. MSG seems kinda dumb. Providence isn't Syracuse or Villanova.

Agree with that for several reasons:
1. PC never had many fans at the Big East back in the day and likely won't travel well now either
2. PC grads aren't smart enough to get jobs in NYC so again will have very few fans there
3. The fans that do travel from Providence will be late arriving due to stopping along the Hudson to look for the water fire displays

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Why make it a four-year series? A deal similar to the nova one of home, home, neutral (at Mohegan) makes total sense. A game in Boston or NYC is just asking for woeful attendance, TD Garden or MSG would be at best half full. PC is a VERY small school so they don't have the sheer number of alums to fill up these large arenas.

 

[Scrutiner]

Boston makes even less sense. Why would a team from Rhode Island and a team from Connecticut give Massachusetts that gate?

Honest to god - what's with the obsession with not making money? I mean I guess i'd go, but if I have to travel, i'd literally rather travel to DD Arena and pay Providence $25 a ticket to keep the rivalry going and enjoy the campus crowds more than I'd like going to Boston and sitting behind a bunch of 70 year olds and their walkers.

I resemble that remark but haven't picked out a walker yet.

 

[Tex-Lager93]

Like this. Did just remember they are in Charleston too...so chance we play them twice.

Personally, I have a real affinity for playing out of conference foes twice in a year - usually leads to good things (i.e. Georgia Tech 03/04, Kentucky 10/11, Florida 13/14).

 

[Louis]

I don't want to play them because screw them. They wouldn't play us back when they were good with Jimmy Foster and Johnny Egan. They wouldn't play UConn until the Big East made them.

 

[Louis]

I don't want to play them because screw them. They wouldn't play us back when they were good with Jimmy Foster and Johnny Egan. They wouldn't play UConn until the Big East made them.

Jimmy Foster or Walker?

 

[HooperScooper]

Pretty sure Boston Garden holds more people than the Dunk or XL. If we want neutral site, Boston will be better than MSG by far with those two teams. Me, I'd rather 4 games in our normal arenas. The Dunk is easy for me.

18,864 for basketball at the TD Garden.

 

[bmo22]

Don't get too cocky. Have you watched them this year? Lots of big guards and forwards and no seniors. And, the guard many here lamented flipping to PC hardly plays as a sophomore.

It has nothing to do with being cocky. Thinking UConn is scared to play PC is just stupid.

The reality is most UConn fans would enjoy a matchup with PC in the near future, including me. But I wouldn’t want to sacrifice games against big-name programs like Nova, Cuse, Zona and Florida to make a matchup with PC happen.

Every program needs a certain number of home games per season, so neutral site and home-and-home opportunities are limited. If we’re having trouble finding those opportunities I’d say schedule something with PC, BC or UMass. Otherwise aim to play the bigger fish.

 

[Towney007]

It has nothing to do with being cocky. Thinking UConn is scared to play PC is just stupid.

The reality is most UConn fans would enjoy a matchup with PC in the near future, including me. But I wouldn’t want to sacrifice games against big-name programs like Nova, Cuse, Zona and Florida to make a matchup with PC happen.

Every program needs a certain number of home games per season, so neutral site and home-and-home opportunities are limited. If we’re having trouble finding those opportunities I’d say schedule something with PC, BC or UMass. Otherwise aim to play the bigger fish.

Why would PC being on the schedule prevent us from playing other big time schools? The problem isn't the difficulty of our schedule at its ceiling - it's that the floor flipping sucks. UMKC, East Carolina... why the heck are we playing Lafayette? I'm all for 3-4 bunnies to get some confidence and get our bearings. But we need to be making a more active effort to play URI's, Providence, UMass, St Joe's, VCU, St John's, Seton Hall.... Get two of those on our schedule with Arizona, Florida State, Iowa, Syracuse - and all of a sudden it starts to look pretty fun.

To boot, they're limited travel games provided they have a road trip attached to them, their fans will travel here and our fans really want some regional rivals back. And frankly - with our travel schedule, getting some high floor mid majors to Gampel with a little cultural pull is hurting no one.

 

[FartMan69]

Pretty sure Boston Garden holds more people than the Dunk or XL. If we want neutral site, Boston will be better than MSG by far with those two teams. Me, I'd rather 4 games in our normal arenas. The Dunk is easy for me.

Does TD Garden even host regular season college games anymore? It's not like UConn can just magically tell the Garden "make way for us." Also how big of a crowd do you think we would draw in Boston against a RI catholic school?

 

[FartMan69]

There is no downside to doing a series againt any P5/Big East school. Get over any weird hatred towards other schools and watch a basketball game not against the UMKC Kangaroos

 

[Guapo]

Does TD Garden even host regular season college games anymore? It's not like UConn can just magically tell the Garden "make way for us." Also how big of a crowd do you think we would draw in Boston against a RI catholic school?

*whispers* UConn would garner a larger turnout in Boston than it would in NYC

/hides

 

[bmo22]

Why would PC being on the schedule prevent us from playing other big time schools? The problem isn't the difficulty of our schedule at its ceiling - it's that the floor flipping sucks. UMKC, East Carolina... why the heck are we playing Lafayette? I'm all for 3-4 bunnies to get some confidence and get our bearings. But we need to be making a more active effort to play URI's, Providence, UMass, St Joe's, VCU, St John's, Seton Hall.... Get two of those on our schedule with Arizona, Florida State, Iowa, Syracuse - and all of a sudden it starts to look pretty fun.

To boot, they're limited travel games provided they have a road trip attached to them, their fans will travel here and our fans really want some regional rivals back. And frankly - with our travel schedule, getting some high floor mid majors to Gampel with a little cultural pull is hurting no one.

The games you listed (Lafayette) don’t require an away game next year. If we did all home-and-home series in the non-conference we’d end up with something like 5-6 non-conference home games instead of 8-9. The school is not going to go for that. Unless you want to sacrifice the 3 games we play in early season tournaments (Maui, 2K, etc.) there’s no way around it.

I agree I would like to play better regional teams like PC, URI, etc. but if we can only schedule 2-3 home-and-homes or neutral games per season I’d rather play blue blood schools any day over the those regional ones. It brings more exposure to the program.

With that said, if those schools are willing to come to UConn without a return game then I’m all for replacing the cupcakes. They wouldn’t agree to that though.

You’re as good as the company you keep and I don’t want UConn to be UMass.

 

[Storrs South]

*whispers* UConn would garner a larger turnout in Boston than it would in NYC

/hides

There are more UConn alumni in Boston so I would tend to agree, even with the history UConn has at MSG that attracts alumni to the games. The only way this wouldn't happen is that mass transit is an easy option to get to NYC while Boston you either drive or take Amtrak.

 

[Guapo]

There are more UConn alumni in Boston so I would tend to agree, even with the history UConn has at MSG that attracts alumni to the games. The only way this wouldn't happen is that mass transit is an easy option to get to NYC while Boston you either drive or take Amtrak.

I also think that UConn playing a neutral site game in Boston is relatively novel to the alumni and fans in the area and points north which would motivate them to go whereas UConn plays multiple games in the NYC area for that alumni so the event isn’t as novel.