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Message: [QUOTE="RegisteredUconn, post: 4267506, member: 1477"] UcMiami and bballnut90 have given great historical context to the "P5" designation. The question "Is UConn a mid-major?" is somewhat complex. When the term "P5" was initially floated, it referred to conferences whose schools were given special consideration for football bowl games, and especially for the newly instituted playoffs to identify an "on field" champion as opposed to a "voted on" champion. The trouble was the outlier, Notre Dame. The Irish didn't participate in a football conference but they did have a special place, given past performance, in the public's football imagination. So the Irish got included with the P5 for bowl selection purposes. On to basketball, specifically women's basketball. The Big East is not a P5 conference and thus defaults to a mid-major. But just like football, there is an outlier whose past, and (hopefully) foreseeable future, is so special they, like Notre Dame in football, must be included with P5 teams in discussions of performance excellence. In fact, they are so special, the discussion must start with them. [/QUOTE]