I like reading opposing teams message boards when they discuss UConn. Syracuse is my favorite because they do it often. When comparing themselves to us they all say the same thing, conference affiliation, the dome, etc.
They really like talking about how bad our recruiting/ future prospects are due to the AAC.
Yet when I dug into our recruiting vs theirs on a year by year basis over the past 4 years we have had consistently better classes. Why is that? Is it our history? Is it JB’s age/ the zone/ how ugly Orange is?
I honestly couldn’t tell you. But their narratives grow tired and are constantly evolving as things change.
For a long time Syracuse has hung onto the fact that their future is brighter than ours and we were nothing but our history.
At this point they can’t really say that for certain.
With JB nearing the end of his career, their recruiting is not going to improve anytime soon. They are in for a patch of uncertainty when JB retires and it will cause strife in their fan base. Honestly they should be thanking UConn for hiring KO because his tenure may help keep them from hiring GN as their next coach and allow them to do a real search.
Now that we landed a young, sought after, energetic coach who is pumping life into the program, they hate him. (His hiring was a recruiting battle in itself) They love trashing his sideline antics and are going as far as accusing him of hiring recruits parents/ handlers. They are all full of # 2 and would take his resume for their next coach in a second.
Now that we are headed to the BEAST they can no longer use the conference affiliation as an excuse, let’s see what they will come up with instead.
The ACC is great and playing Duke/UNC or Virginia every year is awesome. But I guarantee they miss playing all of their old rivals and definitely miss the BE tourney. (They def don’t miss playing us, search for the game thread from this past year and see for yourself)
Syracuse has had a hard on for us for a longtime and their message board makes me happy.
If AJ decides to play there it would make sense to me. His connection to the area and JG3 should be enough. If he decides to go to UConn to play with our talented young core/coach that will also make sense.
At this point I’m rambling because I ate a pot brownie 2 hours ago so I am going to try and sum this up.
Syracuse is bad, UConn is good.
4>1