ADDING UCONN TO THE BIG TEN WOULD BE ACTUALLY GOOD. HERE'S WHY.

[Athlete94]

Are we like, the fat chick that lost weight and got contact lenses over winter break

That's an awesome line, love it

 

[CL82]

Born in NJ, have family in NJ... Thankful EVERY day that I don't live there!!

Born in CT, have family in CT and live in NJ... As much as I like to mock our Rutgers guests who come to the board with CV in hand, touting RU's accomplishments, North Jersey is a pretty nice place to live. Expensive, but worth it.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

IU's fans were mostly complimentary of UCONN or at least neutral. There were a few who opposed inclusion based on losing traditional rivalries and geography. Most of the UCONN bashing was coming from RU Fans and an OSU Fan with a peculiar interest in Rutgers.

I can see Ohio St's issue. They want Rutgers to be weak so that they can recruit in Jersey. UConn's football practice facilities are better that Rutgers by a long shot and comparable to Ohio St's (their game stadium of course is at a different level that the Rent) and UConn, unlike Rutgers, has proven that with a level playing field and decent coaching, the school can compete - see the BCS game. That could entice some recruits in Jersey who may not want to be that far away from home, go to that big of a school, be buried on the bench in Colombus, etc, to look at UConn instead of Ohio St.

 

[FDNY99]

Born in CT, have family in CT and live in NJ... As much at I like mock our Rutgers guests who come to the board with CV in hand, touting RU's accomplishments, North Jersey is a pretty nice place to live. Expensive, but worth it.

I'll second that...I have some friends and family that live in Bergen County. The towns they live in are very nice.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I'll second that...I have some friends and family that live in Bergen County. The towns they live in are very nice.

Every place has good places and bad. I also live in Bergen County and the town, i.e. Borough, I live is is OK with very good schools moderate housing costs for the area and very high taxes; but, the community itself is great and I feel fortunate that my family lives here. That said, take a 20 minute drive down Rte 208 and after one drive through Patterson's 4th Ward, one probably would never want to go to New Jersey again.

 

[IMind]

They're still a blueblood program - they've just fallen on hard times. Once they upgrade from Crean next summer they'll be a consistent top 15 team and capable of making Final 4 runs most years, like Kansas or UNC.

It seems to me like this has been said every January since Knight was forced out. I'm not saying they couldn't get back to consistently making deep runs in the NCAA tournament... it's just that I get more skeptical every year.

 

[TruthNnumbers]

It seems to me like this has been said every January since Knight was forced out. I'm not saying they couldn't get back to consistently making deep runs in the NCAA tournament... it's just that I get more skeptical every year.

I understand your position but I still have hope. IU basketball was a slow and painful trainwreck starting with BK being pushed out and ending with CS being fired (should never have been hired). The cleanup took TC a few months and left him with 2 players. The rebuilding really didn’t start until a year later. That first year was just used to plan the rebuild and we played that year with 9 freshmen and 8 walk-ons. TC may not be the man to get Indiana basketball back to where it was but he did a solid job rebuilding it from next to nothing. For that I will always be thankful to him, his staff, the players that gave everything they had and of course the fans that stuck with the team through it all. I still have hope because basketball means to much to the people in Indiana to just give up.

 

[Kolumbo]

The fine folks of Indiana should be doing everything possible to get UCONN into your conference ASAP. To help solidify B1G hoops and IU basketball.

 

[sdhusky]

As I've said before I’m an Indiana first B1G fan but I would agree that we are not "on-par" with those programs or UConn over the last 20-25 years. But then name another school not on that list that is. I'll also say that I come here for the reasons I posted last week...this is a good source for CR info from nice people that happen to support a school I would like to see added to the B1G. I do not come here to argue or defend IU or the B1G.

Having said that here I go doing it anyway. I think most would disagree with your understanding of the title "blue-blood". UNLV as an example was never...never...even in the early 90s a blue-blood, but for the time they were at the top of the CBB world. It takes time, a lot of it, to become a blue-blood program and it takes time, a lot of it, to be taken off of that list as well. IU, thanks to Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson, dropped to near death by 2008. There was more to it of course but they are responsible for taking a wounded program and utterly destroying it. In his first year Tom Crean had two returning players, both walk-ons who had scored a combined 36 points in their Indiana careers. By 2012 IU was ranked 1st in the pre-season AP poll. ONLY a blue blood makes that kind of a turnaround.

IU has 21 B1G titles, 38 NCAA bids, 64 NCAA wins, 21 sweet 16’s, 11 final 8’s, 8 final 4’s, 6 title games and 5 NC’s. We have beaten the AP #1 ranked team 7 times, have 1756 wins (10th), 60 All-America, 29 McDonalds All-America, 9 national coach of the year, 18 B1G player of the year and on and on and on. Indiana is still a blue-blood college basketball program.

Indiana basketball is as much a mess as pre-Saban Alabama football or pre Pete Carroll USC football or post Boeheim Syracuse BB

They wil be back.

 

[Matrim55]

Indiana basketball is as much a mess as pre-Saban Alabama football or pre Pete Carroll USC football or post Boeheim Syracuse BB

They wil be back.

Or current Texas football.

 

[UCFBfan]

Born in CT, have family in CT and live in NJ... As much as I like to mock our Rutgers guests who come to the board with CV in hand, touting RU's accomplishments, North Jersey is a pretty nice place to live. Expensive, but worth it.

It is true. My mom always told folks that if they could hold their nose for the first 20 minutes they were in Jersey on the Parkway they'd see it was a really nice state. We live in Morris County (well I did and my family all still live there) and it's great. Lots of nice towns. Great schools. It's a lot like it is up here in CT to be honest.

 

[Seaa Blue]

The fine folks of Indiana should be doing everything possible to get UCONN into your conference ASAP. To help solidify B1G hoops and IU basketball.

Working on it...

 

[HoopsFan21]

There are some seriously bitter Rutgers fans commenting on that article. I fail to understand why Rutgers fans hate UConn so much, and if not hate, they seem to have little respect.

 

[Nostical]

I fail to understand why Rutgers fans hate UConn so much, and if not hate, they seem to have little respect.

Like the kind of warm respect and admiration the Knights get here?

 

[dwalks93]

I think you need to look at the source. To be honest I feel bad for Rutger's fan. I read a lot of boards and the only constant across all the fan lines is a willingness to universally taunt Rutgers athletics.

Rutgers athletics are either a punching bag or a punch line and are often both at the same time. It is predictable Rutger's fans lash out at better programs who have been less P5 fortunate like Uconn. I don't take it as an attack on Uconn, more just misguided frustration...Rutger's fans have a lot of deserved pent up frustration and it has to come out somewhere.

For the Rutger's fans I really do hope Rutgers gets its program together. Rutgers has a lot of potential but it needs to change the culture and literally rebuild from the ground up.

Respect needs to be earned on the field/court and cannot be granted by a B10 invite. Rutgers athletic performance has not earned this respect yet...Uconn has earned its respect and maybe we will get a P5 invite some day. But "P5" or "not P5" does not change what Uconn athletics have accomplished....clothes don't make the man.

Rutger's fans, best of luck in the future.

 

[pj]

There are some seriously bitter Rutgers fans commenting on that article. I fail to understand why Rutgers fans hate UConn so much, and if not hate, they seem to have little respect.

Nobody wants to be on the bottom. If you're on the bottom of the P5, you need to find someone in a G5 conference to look down on.

 

[Redding Husky]

Love this kind of stuff.

First ... there is NOTHING done at Rutgers that tells you that they can build a Program in a real sport. That is what Delaney & their due diligence should have turned up.

Comparative? Calhoun build a 4 NC Power from the backwoods of Storrs; an amazing feat. In the bigtime sport. Auriemma, given the keys, built the BEST Women's Program in the history of college sports and still has another decade to run. There is nothing at Rutgers near that. In fact, their Mens BB, excepting 1976, has always been bottom quartile of whatever league they are in. Stringer is what you say: she has gotten lost in the woods in the last half dozen years.

Look more closely: UConn Baseball is the finest Northeastern Program. With significant challenges, they rose above everybody from Maryland through NE. UConn Men's Ice Hockey went from 0 to top 10 attendance amongst the 60 Programs in College Hockey in one year. Solid fanbase; good recruiting area; and now, we are going to see this thing grow. Women's Field Hockey - one of the best Programs. Men's Soccer - traditionally one of the leaders in attendance since the early 1970s; yearly participant in NCAA tournament. Women's Soccer - darn good. There seems to be nothing Rutgers does that UConn does not do better. Wrestling? Frankly ... most of the Universities have dropped wrestling. I bet the reality is not what he claims. Do they ever have ONE wrestler win his class?

I happen to believe our Football and theirs are comparable. We just came from a different origin. As much as they claim all this attendance success yada yada ... in 2003 as both Programs were in the NEW BE, they really struggled to get 20,000 for a game I went to versus Syracuse. I think they have a natural recruiting advantage; one that Schiano really exploited. Still, I think they have a scary culture that came to the fore in this past year. Too many kids have been involved in violence, drunk driving, burglaries and skating out the door. If that is what New Brunswick/Piscataway gives you, then I think any conference would prefer to be in the Storrs woods.

Frankly ... this UConn campus is not going to look the same very soon to whomever at Rutgers has been there in the last few years. It was a cow town. It is now a Globally ranked University that is rising.

Well said. Everything about UConn screams "excellence". Everything about Rutgers screams "mediocrity" (and that's being generous).

We're better in academics, athletics, and quality of life.