FriarJ, the CR forum is composed primarily of either football only or football first posters. There are relatively few bb first posters here. I'm a UConn alum and a fan of both sports. Part of me is deeply saddened by the loss of all the BE schools that have played together over the years including the C7. As UConn elevated its presence under JC, the bb fans steadily watched as UConn rose towards the top in BE regular season and tournament championships. And those accomplishments were not trivial because the BE was the premier bb conference.
But UConn also invested heavily in upgrading it football presence. The incubation period was not long enough in the BE for UConn football and its fans to establish the ties to the BE. Furthermore there was always the perception, and indeed there is some basis to this assumption, that the schools with both sports were either being hamstrung by the bb only schools or the two sport schools were carrying the bb schools. This came from the way contracts were written with football schools getting more monies from ESPN than bb schools.
Personally I don't subscribe to this philosophy completely, but there were administrators in these schools who did and that is why teams left. In other words it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Because of my sentimentality to the bb side of the equation I would love to have UConn keep the BE name. But the reality is the C7 will get the name in the end. They'll just be required to pay for it.