DiMauro: “The ‘new’ Big East: Is that all there is?“

[Watchdog]

I think DiMauro's a duck___ loser, but it's not like people haven't posted on here that Hurley's on the hot seat next year without a tournament run.

It's actually hard to disagree with much of what was quoted above. It's been three years and we're still hearing about how bad things were. DH seems like a high character guy who puts pressure on himself and he may be feeling a bit defensive because the results so far don't meet his standards.

If we end up with only IW as an "added" player then criticism is warranted, especially in this day and age when coaches have to be more aggressive in recruiting transfers.

Look at what Mick has done at UCLA in two years. They were on a three year downward spiral. Juzang was a great pickup and carried them in the tournament. Our transfers? Not so much.

 

[Watchdog]

we literally just extended him lol

The same AD extended KO too, so while the two are vastly different in what we believe it takes to be successful here, contract extensions don't always work out for the best.

 

[polycom]

It's actually hard to disagree with much of what was quoted above. It's been three years and we're still hearing about how bad things were. DH seems like a high character guy who puts pressure on himself and he may be feeling like he hasn't done the job to his standards.

If we end up with only IW as an "added" player then criticism is warranted, especially in this day and age when coaches have to be more aggressive in recruiting transfers.

Look at what Mick has done at UCLA in two years. They were on a three year downward spiral. Juzang was a great pickup and carried them in the tournament. Our transfers? Not so much.

So then he should write to DiMauro should write about that... instead he goes on about how going to the big east hurt women's basketball...

 

[Milo65]

BC/UNC pre-pandemic! Mikey likes to piss on Hurley. Yes the guy who got us back to the dance, increased ticket sales, upgraded recruiting and by all accounts is beloved by his players. BCGenius probably should be throwing stones at his Eagles, literally the worst athletic program in the ACC.

 

[Waquoit]

Folks trying to retcon this into a bad season are failing. Volume isn't helping make the case.

 

[The Viking]

if his point was that the NBE is a meaningful disappointment in terms of quality of play, then the article makes sense. The conference is not nearly as good as we all remembered or hoped. And if Wright leaves, there is really nothing left. Sorry, but Creighton and Butler and Xavier are mid-major programs in another part of the world. I'd argue that the BE needs UConn to succeed a lot more than anyone wants to admit. You watch the P5 teams and the athletes they have versus the mediocrity of the BE...its meaningful. And its not going to get better. The P5 will continue to wrestle away the best talent and the best coaches. And if there is a rule about staying in college for at least 2 years, then the disparity will only increase.

People were saying the P5 money was going to crush non P5 schools before Villanova won 2 championships. It's a favorite go-to for fans of the Orange in fact.

College basketball is not college football. You don't need to spend 10 million on a coach to compete for a championship. Kids like playing in the Northeast just as much as they like playing for a Big 10 team like Michigan or Ohio State or the SEC footprint.

The Big East and UConn are good for each other. UConn has only been back for one year. The longer the relationship goes the better both will be each year.

As for this Dimauro piece, I could see him writing it next year if UConn again was bounced on a Friday night during the BET and lost in the first round in the NCAA tourney.

But this year? Ridiculous. The guy is a clown.

 

[billybud]

Other than Nova and UConn....all winners of the tournament in the 30 tourneys since UNLV won in 1990...have been teams that are current members of the P5.

A lot of folks, I'll bet, were hoping for a Gonzaga or Houston breakthrough....


But since UNLV in 1990....

UConn and Nova have together won six championships....

The only conference (using teams that are current ACC and not necessarily at the time of the win) that has won more NC's in that time is the ACC with 12.

 

[SubbaBub]

We have one less NCAA title than BC has tournament appearances in the last 15 years. Kick rocks.

So same # of Final Four appearances as their tournament appearances.

 

[JohnFSilver]

I am not going to take a shot at any of the media since they are my friends and some of them I learned a ton from. I also don't know what's behind the scenes driving this. Mike is someone I admire.

But, Tournament success can't be the measure of success. If Hurley gets a 3 seed and goes 24-4 next year and they get bounced in the first round was the season a failure? No. That's ridiculous IMO.

In same vein, if he goes 18-15 and gets to the second round or Sweet 16, which season would you rather take? I would take the 24-4 team TBH. Tournament success is fleeting.

I think we expect UConn to be a 20-win team and in the top 3 of the Big East. March success is too random. As Jim Calhoun said the day after winning the title...i am just as good a coach on Sunday as I was on Tuesday (or something like that as I remember reading).

 

[bballgrda]

Sarcasm isn't obvious on the internet...

It is with context

 

[CL82]

“The ‘new’ Big East: Is that all there is?“​

If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing. Let's break out the booze and have a ball.

 

[Waquoit]

I am not going to take a shot at any of the media..

Good idea, leave it to the experts.

 

[pepband99]

The move to the ZBE was UConn moving backwards not forwards.

Clearly the West Coast Conference and American had better years.

just when you think "he can't be that stupid"

The WCC? Really?

 

[superjohn]

Other than Nova and UConn....all winners of the tournament in the 30 tourneys since UNLV won in 1990...have been teams that are current members of the P5.

A lot of folks, I'll bet, were hoping for a Gonzaga or Houston breakthrough....


But since UNLV in 1990....

UConn and Nova have together won six championships....

The only conference (using teams that are current ACC and not necessarily at the time of the win) that has won more NC's in that time is the ACC with 12.

Yep and I'm sure a lot of Pac-12 fans were pulling for UCLA and Big 10 fans were pulling for any number of their teams. 2000 and 1997 are a long time ago. It's no doubt difficult for anyone to win a championship and harder for any team outside of the P6 to win a championship.

 

[Woodson]

I didn't read the article and I won't. Just saw a thread with Dimauro and here to join the dunkfest. Dimauro is a nobody. He has been a nobody for 30 years. The fact that he still has that gig at the Day is an embarrassment, to him, the paper, and every subscriber.

Gave his twitter a peak. At some point you gotta admit failure and just delete your account right? I mean he's almost following more people than he has followers... But he just keeps hacking on

 

[freescooter]

Hurley is as far from a hot seat as a Stark sitting on the throne in the North. He has made the team much better each of the three years he has been here. He has a recipe that the Athletic Department believes in == recruit well and play hard. Even if he was Jim Calhoun, he will have years where the team isn’t as good as the year before. Next year may be one of them.

Saying that not making a “tournament run” next year puts him on the hot seat is just dumb.

Not getting to the tournament next year is completely unacceptable. He won’t be fired if it happens, but there will be pressure except from the 8th grade cheer squad that posts here.

 

[willie99]

This line tells you all you need to know about the story and the writer:

“Football's newly relegated status as an independent gives it a 2021 home schedule with Holy Cross, Yale, Wyoming and Middle Tennessee, among others.”

Among others is Purdue.

The only reason you would skip mentioning the Big Ten team by name when it is shorter than the words you are replacing naming it with is if you are a complete hack ignoring facts that don’t fit your agenda.

that's the norm for the media

I'll be surprised when they stop lying and actually talk about the nuances of the truth

 

[businesslawyer]

Not getting to the tournament next year is completely unacceptable. He won’t be fired if it happens, but there will be pressure except from the 8th grade cheer squad that posts here.

LOL. There won't be any pressure on him from his employer. What idiots on a message board say is of little consequence in real life.

Basketball teams don't get better year after year in straight lines. If idiots on message boards want to fire coaches who don't achieve high enough goals fast enough, that is their prerogative. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion. But, like mine, it's irrelevant to his relationship with his employer. He didn't just get an extension because the school thought that every single year would be better than the one before it.

 

[freescooter]

I am not going to take a shot at any of the media since they are my friends and some of them I learned a ton from. I also don't know what's behind the scenes driving this. Mike is someone I admire.

But, Tournament success can't be the measure of success. If Hurley gets a 3 seed and goes 24-4 next year and they get bounced in the first round was the season a failure? No. That's ridiculous IMO.

In same vein, if he goes 18-15 and gets to the second round or Sweet 16, which season would you rather take? I would take the 24-4 team TBH. Tournament success is fleeting.

I think we expect UConn to be a 20-win team and in the top 3 of the Big East. March success is too random. As Jim Calhoun said the day after winning the title...i am just as good a coach on Sunday as I was on Tuesday (or something like that as I remember reading).

No no no no. The regular season means nothing in modern college basketball.

LOL. There won't be any pressure on him from his employer. What idiots on a message board say is of little consequence in real life.

Basketball teams don't get better year after year in straight lines. If idiots on message boards want to fire coaches who don't achieve high enough goals fast enough, that is their prerogative. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion. But, like mine, it's irrelevant to his relationship with his employer. He didn't just get an extension because the school thought that every single year would be better than the one before it.

Hogwash. Not getting to the Tournsment next year will bring pressure. From the fans and because of that through the administration. There will be increased pressure to make it in 2023. And failing that he could be gone. It isn’t 1965 anymore. Yes it isn’t a straight line but you can’t struggle for more than a year especially if you are UConn.

 

[businesslawyer]

No no no no. The regular season means nothing in modern college basketball.

Hogwash. Not getting to the Tournsment next year will bring pressure. From the fans and because of that through the administration. There will be increased pressure to make it in 2023. And failing that he could be gone. It isn’t 1965 anymore. Yes it isn’t a straight line but you can’t struggle for more than a year especially if you are UConn.

You can't struggle for more than a year? If struggling means not continually getting better, he hasn't come near struggling yet. So your chest thumping hot seat language means that any coach who goes backwards two straight years has to go, and thus Hurley, not having gone backward, is in trouble because any coach would be? Great logic. Great writing.

 

[Chief00]

I know there’s a lot of circumstances involved, most of which I don’t want to cover, but the reality is when you have a rare talent like Bouknight, you have to channel/refine him and convert the talent into meaningful results for the time you have him. That largely did not happen. I don’t blame Hurley for much of that, but at the end of the day the great coaches manage those situations/ players to the program’s benefit. I recognize it wasn’t for lack of effort on Dan’s part and he tried various things. The best that can happen now is to say we produced a lottery pick, but are we really sure that’s definitely going to happen now? Time will tell. What a shame because both coach and player in their hearts wanted another year. I sense if that happened the final chapter would be very different for both of them, in a good way.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Look at what Mick has done at UCLA in two years. They were on a three year downward spiral. Juzang was a great pickup and carried them in the tournament. Our transfers? Not so much.

UCLA was pretty unremarkable for most of the season, including their conference tournament. They had a nice run in the tournament which is fantastic but it's revisionist history to pretend that everyone was thrilled with Mick Cronin prior to about 2 weeks ago.

 

[freescooter]

You can't struggle for more than a year? If struggling means not continually getting better, he hasn't come near struggling yet. So your chest thumping hot seat language means that any coach who goes backwards two straight years has to go, and thus Hurley, not having gone backward, is in trouble because any coach would be? Great logic. Great writing.

Well, yes, actually. In fact I’ll go a step further and say if he continually gets bounced in the first weekend he will be gone pretty quickly. Look there is a big difference between UHart and UConn. If you are a power program the regular season matters only to the extent that it positions you for the tournament. And once you get there you have to make noise on a regular basis. Not every year, and you don’t need to go to the Final Four, but you can’t be one and done every. year either. Can you have a bad year here or there? Sure. Can you have 2 in a row? Maybe, but I then the seat will be open flame.

Hurley is trending right at this point. But there is no way you can say that if we spend the next 2 years playing in the NIT. It is the reality of big time college basketball. And basketball isn’t like football where you can argue you need x years to bring in your recruits. With the 1-drones and now the new transfer rule, it is more of a win now proposition. And there is one final reality. A couple of losing seasons in a row will result in crowds of 6500. And no move to a new league to bring them back is on the horizon.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I really don’t understand why Connecticut papers employ guys who hate UConn to write about UConn. It’s a failure. I know DiMauro simply isnt good enough for the Boston papers but maybe he could go to Worcester or something. No paper in CT should employ avowed BC or Syracuse guys to cover UConn. Let him write about the Red Sox and Patriots.

Jacobs whining about the national guys on Twitter when he should look in the mirror. I want critical and objective reporting. But these guys confuse that with stirring up controversy and the result is too often just garbage designed to get clicks. The whole financial paradigm of modern newspapers is so broken that the result is too often trash. There is a reason why The Athletic is now the best in the business.

2020-21 was a messed up year. Not much went according to plan for anything, including UConn basketball. At least they played some games and won more than they lost. Remember when we weren’t sure they’d play? I criticize Dan for some things, but everybody gets a Mulligan from last year. Had fans been in the stands and every game played, it might have been very different.