Do not look at the Big East's record

[Fishy]

Additionally, the AAC renegotiates their deal in 2019 while NBE is locked into their version of minimum wage until 2026. There is no big money edge in being in NBE. It's a fallacy.

I think we're plainly dreaming if we think the 2019 will be anything but more of the same - there's no value in this conference. It is nothing but a lifeboat.

But it is true that the money difference between this conference and the Big East is essentially a wash when you're talking about a $70M athletic budget.

 

[Gurleyman]

It might not be an option, but the fact is that UConn consciously decided against joining a vastly superior basketball conference to continue supporting a football team that is one of the worst in the country. As a guy who cares way more about hoops than football, that's frustrating. I understand that joining the Big East isn't a realistic option, so it's mostly a moot point.

Obviously, the conscious decision was to elevate football to protect ourselves against a possible NCAA split, which may still be coming down the pike. As you infer, there's no way we can now align our institution with a bunch of private Catholic non-football schools. Right now, it's frustrating, since we were the big realignment loser by a mile, but the Longview should be that we don't want to get left behind and compete someday for the I-AA Basketball Title, which would be far more frustrating than being in a weaker league but still competing for the top trophy. We still have work to do to get above the bar for that split, if it's just the P5 who will break away, but hopefully we will get there, or we'll be stuck in some awful limbo I don't care to think about.

For this year, and probably the next few, that 15-year old decision backfired (mostly because we didn't do an AD search when Perkins left and just gave it to Hathaway the same day, who was the wrong guy at the wrong time to move us forward). But so did the first decade of joining the Big East before we learned how to compete, and long term, that was the best thing for us.

I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

 

[whaler11]

Now Whaler you're usually a good poster, whether its on here or on the football board. But some of your football buddies do this to outsiders way too much.

But I agree with your Big East stance.

I would imagine most of those guys don't consider me a buddy .

 

[Gurleyman]

It's funny how ignorant we can be as fans sometimes. This is a basketball board and if it weren't for football, we'd be in the Big East. The problem is because of football being so awful we are in the AAC and will remain there for a long time unless our football brothers decide to leave the dream behind in which then we can go back to the Big East. I mean can anyone here - as BASKETBALL fans - say they'd rather be in a conference with SMU, Houston, Tulsa, East Carolina, UCF, USF, Cincy, Tulane and Memphis. This instead of Villanova, GTown, PC, St Johns, Creighton, Butler, Xavier, Marquette and DePaul ??....Now remember adding us would make all of those teams look and recruit better. We are where we are and have to live with it, but as a basketball fan of UConn I'd gladly take back that "mid-major" league or so you call it, in a nano second!

I'm not sure we'd be in the Big East any more, even if we still played I-AA football. We aren't a private Catholic school and those schools might not have wanted us in their club anyway, since we are a state school with a different culture and philosophy. More likely we would have been jettisoned into the A-10 after this split and be back with UMass and URI.

 

[CTBasketball]

I would imagine most of those guys don't consider me a buddy .

Oh I must have gotten the wrong impression. They don't like you either?

 

[johnhuskies95]

I like the Big East's chances of being on the right side of history a lot better than I like the AAC's. With the exception of Cleveland and Pittsburgh, they have a school within 50 miles of every major city between Boston, Chicago and DC, and in most cases they are the only team in that market. Almost every program has been to a Final Four in the modern era, and most of them draw well. If the P5 tries to kill the Big East, they could kill the sport of college basketball. The AAC could go away tomorrow and no one would miss it.

Haha, I love that modern era line. Most of those schools haven't done anything in the tournament since the mid 80's, unless you're partial to Providence's awe inspiring 1997 elite 8 run.

 

[itgoeslike]

I think we're plainly dreaming if we think the 2019 will be anything but more of the same - there's no value in this conference. It is nothing but a lifeboat.

But it is true that the money difference between this conference and the Big East is essentially a wash when you're talking about a $70M athletic budget.

2019 is not going to deliver a windfall by any measure. If the conference stays intact, the contract will likely go from really crappy to crappy, which will bring it into alignment with the NBE over the 12 year term. And as you stated, we're taking about peanuts that aren't going to have a material effect one way or another. Playing the money card is silly.

One could play the better basketball with regional rivalries card, which is probably true. However, we're in the AAC so we can get back to competing at the highest level. Think of the AAC as a version of the Atlantic Hockey league. Without AH, we wouldn't have been in a position to draw 8,000 plus at UConn's HE opener.

 

[johnhuskies95]

The version of the AAC that we saw last year included Louisville and did not include ECU, Tulsa, and Tulane, so that obviously distorts the picture a bit. And really, if you're going to compare the two apples-to-apples, you have to eliminate UConn, too (again, this is in a different universe where UConn is choosing between leagues). Minus UConn and Louisville, it was a two bid league.

It might be still November, but the OOC schedule is already half over, so at this point we already have a pretty good idea of which conferences are strong and which aren't. The Big East is closer to #1 and the AAC is closer to #10, and looking at recruiting, I'm not so sure that's going to change anytime soon.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing that as justification for saying they're "vastly superior". Even if you remove Louisville from the equation, the third best team in the AAC last year(tied for third) had their way with the Big East's champion in the tournament.

I'm far from an AAC apologist, but I have a feeling that by year's end Cincinnati and Memphis will be top 5 quality teams in the Big East.

 

[7774]

So you're cool with being stuck in the Big East when the P5 reduces the rest of college athletics to a smoldering crater? I'd much rather take the risk with football. It's literally our only shot at survival.

It's amazing how many people don't seem to grasp this. The people in charge of realignment care about nothing on this earth except money. They maximize their money by starting their own version of the NCAA tournament, and when that happens it's over for every team in the Big East.

 

[ecasadoSBU]

Exactly.

The NBE walked into the upstart Fox Sports offices at the exact right time. It's not that Fox saw great ratings with the NBE, they needed something to fill up their prime airtime and threw huge bucks at the NBE.

I don't think there are terrible ratings. Its a new channel. You gotta expect that people won't know or won't naturally tune in to FS1. Is going to take years of solid programming by FS1 to compete with ESPN and they are aware of that. It doesn't matter what crappy programming you put in ESPN and you can be sure that they will probably get a500k viewers because ESPN has a whole generation of sports viewers which naturally tune in to ESPN/2 as soon as they turn the TV on.

...so the reason for such low ratings may not be the Big East lack of quality of teams alone, it may be the fact that FS1 is a brand new channel and has a little loya following. I think FS1 would be stupid not to renew the contract. ESPN controls everything else and if they leave the Big East open ESPN will buy that also. FS1 needs more, not less programming...

 

[upstater]

I don't know how your level of idiocy still surprises me at this point, but somehow it does. You state in your post that Kentucky should have been given more credit for their RPI and SOS. Then you state that you're not bringing up RPI, I guess because some other poster brought it up first, as if that's relevent. Just painful.

It's Thanksgiving so I won't call you an moron.

This is how it went:

1. I made the point that the AAC teams performed better in the NCAA tourney than the BE teams.
2. Previous poster jumped bacl and said, "As if that's the only measure..." and he taked of other stats and rating methods for 300+ D1 teams, one of which is RPI, and which is also the basis for his contention that the BE was better.
3. I stated I don't like RPI
4. BUT, since he was bringing in RPI, the AAC was underseeded according to RPI, and the BE was overseeded...
5. AND, that the decision to underseed the AAC (and the SEC) for that matter, and to overseed the BE, blew up in the committees face.
6. At which point you chimed in with your total lack of reading comprehension.
7. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

[ecasadoSBU]

damnnn. Georgetown gave Wisonsin all they had. Came down to the last bucket. What a game!!! There is talent in the Big East. Smith-Rivera (GT) the player of the game. Its gonna be fun watching this league as the season progresses.

 

[UConn990411]

I don't think there are terrible ratings. Its a new channel. You gotta expect that people won't know or won't naturally tune in to FS1. Is going to take years of solid programming by FS1 to compete with ESPN and they are aware of that. It doesn't matter what crappy programming you put in ESPN and you can be sure that they will probably get a500k viewers because ESPN has a whole generation of sports viewers which naturally tune in to ESPN/2 as soon as they turn the TV on.

...so the reason for such low ratings may not be the Big East lack of quality of teams alone, it may be the fact that FS1 is a brand new channel and has a little loya following. I think FS1 would be stupid not to renew the contract. ESPN controls everything else and if they leave the Big East open ESPN will buy that also. FS1 needs more, not less programming...

Nah. It's a league of good programs that people just don't really care much about.

The only time a Georgetown or Butler or Villanova game will have any hype is if they're playing a Kansas/Kentucky/Duke/etc. Thats the reality of the New Big East.

 

[whaler11]

I can make a list too:

1. Upstater is constantly telling people they lack reading comprehension. When it happens that much maybe it's the writer and not the reader?

2. Please don't confuse me with Waylon. I would never propose that UConn has any choice other than the American.

3. I do think people are missing the one real advantage that the Big East schools have - and why I think most years they will be a top 5 conference: If you are basketball player the Big East is the best league you can play in where you are the BMOC. Almost everywhere else the basketball team is now secondary to the football team.

4. These days your NCAA tourney seed is not the most important thing. Where and who you play is much more important than your seed.

5. It's 2014/2015. If you still think RPI is a legitimate reflection of the quality of a team you should be disqualified from any discussions on CBB topics.

 

[Gurleyman]

damnnn. Georgetown gave Wisonsin all they had. Came down to the last bucket. What a game!!! There is talent in the Big East. Smith-Rivera (GT) the player of the game. Its gonna be fun watching this league as the season progresses.

Small sample size, but I keep catching Kaminsky on days he has no impact at all. Kentucky in the Final Four, Florida early last year and then today. If I didn't read box scores or watch highlights, I'd think he was terribly overrated.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Here is my list:

1) Conference matters because it creates a majority of your schedule, and UConn's schedule is going to suck this year. Poor schedule means boring games means low ratings and fewer fans in the seats.

2) You can't use Louisville and UConn's performance last year as evidence that the AAC is even in the same zip code as the Big East this year. Louisville is gone, and the whole point of the debate is which conference is better for UConn, so UConn needs to be excluded from both or included in both if you are going to compare the leagues.

3) People need to stop saying football drives the bus. Markets and ratings drive the bus. Football and basketball are on the bus, but if either sport was actually driving, Rutgers would be in the MAC right now.

4) The Big East schools are not in some version of minimum wage. They are getting over $4MM a year (and probably a lot more) from Fox and many of them are among the top attendance teams in the country for hoops. The NBE is not going away and is not the A10.

5) Please don't confuse me with Whaler. Whaler just complains and attacks other posters without proposing any solutions. I have lots of solutions that are all better than the path UConn has chosen.

6) UConn will not have an athletic program that any P5 conference would want if it stays in the AAC for 5 or 6 more years. There are a lot of options, some of which are realistic, that would be an improvement over this league. This league is a death sentence.

7) Waiting around in the AAC as our attendance craters and football program declines and hoping that for some crazy reason the Big 10 will add us is the stupidest strategy that UConn can pursue, which is probably why UConn will pursue this strategy.

 

[metsfan2323]

Here is my list:

1) Conference matters because it creates a majority of your schedule, and UConn's schedule is going to suck this year. Poor schedule means boring games means low ratings and fewer fans in the seats.

2) You can't use Louisville and UConn's performance last year as evidence that the AAC is even in the same zip code as the Big East this year. Louisville is gone, and the whole point of the debate is which conference is better for UConn, so UConn needs to be excluded from both or included in both if you are going to compare the leagues.

3) People need to stop saying football drives the bus. Markets and ratings drive the bus. Football and basketball are on the bus, but if either sport was actually driving, Rutgers would be in the MAC right now.

4) The Big East schools are not in some version of minimum wage. They are getting over $4MM a year (and probably a lot more) from Fox and many of them are among the top attendance teams in the country for hoops. The NBE is not going away and is not the A10.

5) Please don't confuse me with Whaler. Whaler just complains and attacks other posters without proposing any solutions. I have lots of solutions that are all better than the path UConn has chosen.

6) UConn will not have an athletic program that any P5 conference would want if it stays in the AAC for 5 or 6 more years. There are a lot of options, some of which are realistic, that would be an improvement over this league. This league is a death sentence.

7) Waiting around in the AAC as our attendance craters and football program declines and hoping that for some crazy reason the Big 10 will add us is the stupidest strategy that UConn can pursue, which is probably why UConn will pursue this strategy.

The worst part about Whaler starting this thread is it gave you a forum to post your monthly "Scuttle the football program and crawl back to the C7" newsletter.

Trust me there is no need for you to keep posting this, we all know where you stand and we won't forget it. Many of us are looking forward to shoving this up your arse when UCONN gets a conference upgrade.

and for the 10,000 time, if UCONN did this now it would cost them a fortune, they would have to pay 10 million to the AAC and give up their share of the pot of money left behind in the AAC coffers, and that doesn't even take into consideration the huge investment in football they would be writing off and on top of that we would give up the chance for an upgrade and the huge windfall that will bring. When this financial hit is taken into consideration it makes you look incredibly moronic.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

The Big East has better programs, better tradition, better markets and better fan support than the AAC.

In the event the P5 break off I don't see how the Big East wouldn't be included for their basketball tourney. Certainly they stand a better chance of inclusion for hoops only than our southern mid major football league.

You can say all of the above whole still recognizing the AAC is the top football league available to UConn and where we have to be in order to ever move up.

It's pretty simple and I have no idea why some here try to denigrate the new Big East every chance they get.

 

[Gurleyman]

There's no way the P5 splits and invites non-P5 schools to their championships. They wouldn't want to split the money. Any of it.

Even if we wanted to be independent in football, there's no incentive for the NBE to take us. It's now a league made up of entirely private and almost entirely Catholic schools. I'm sure many of them wouldn't want a state school with state resources to skew the balance of power, especially one that would be angling for an invite elsewhere. We have very little in common with those institutions any more. The Big East began with us as the only public school, but that was 35 years ago and things are different now.

Our current situation is a serious problem, and hopefully we aren't painted into a corner. If we can't get an invite soon, we can hope that if the P5 splits, the leagues will be restructured and it'll open some doors. But we have to keep building our resources, academic research and athletics both, and continue to make ourselves attractive to the power leagues. Wallowing in independent football isn't going to be a good idea.

 

[itgoeslike]

Here is my list:

1) Conference matters because it creates a majority of your schedule, and UConn's schedule is going to suck this year. Poor schedule means boring games means low ratings and fewer fans in the seats.

- Cincy, Memphis, Temple, and SMU may not be more exciting than some of the NBE teams, but UConn basketball will have higher ratings on ESPN in the AAC than it would on FS-1 in the NBE. Additionally, if UConn were to join the NBE and downgrade football, you would see a much more significant loss in attendance from just 1 football game. ​

2) You can't use Louisville and UConn's performance last year as evidence that the AAC is even in the same zip code as the Big East this year. Louisville is gone, and the whole point of the debate is which conference is better for UConn, so UConn needs to be excluded from both or included in both if you are going to compare the leagues.

- No one was suggesting that last year's performance defines this year's performance. The debate was whether last year's tournament records define which conference was better last year (at least that is how I understood/misunderstood it). If the debate is which conference is better for UConn (as you state above), that's easy, it's the AAC, because it provides the best, or should I say the only path, to get back to competing at the highest level. Joining the NBE means we've thrown in the towel.​

3) People need to stop saying football drives the bus. Markets and ratings drive the bus. Football and basketball are on the bus, but if either sport was actually driving, Rutgers would be in the MAC right now.

- No, not exactly. Markets and ratings drive the bus for the Big Ten, SEC and PAC. They don't for the ACC or Big XII, which require football brands to add value to their contracts.​

4) The Big East schools are not in some version of minimum wage. They are getting over $4MM a year (and probably a lot more) from Fox and many of them are among the top attendance teams in the country for hoops. The NBE is not going away and is not the A10.

- $4MM is a drop in the bucket when compared to P5/UConn's budget/revenue. With regard to attendance, the NBE has two teams in top 40 and the conference comes in at number 5, just slightly ahead of the American conference, which doesn't matter one way or another.​

5) Please don't confuse me with Whaler. Whaler just complains and attacks other posters without proposing any solutions. I have lots of solutions that are all better than the path UConn has chosen.

- There's nothing wrong with throwing out solutions, but I haven't heard one that makes more financial and strategic sense. ​

6) UConn will not have an athletic program that any P5 conference would want if it stays in the AAC for 5 or 6 more years. There are a lot of options, some of which are realistic, that would be an improvement over this league. This league is a death sentence.

- Joining the NBE and downgrading football would ensure a death sentence expeditiously, whereas 5-6 years in the AAC is still only a potentiality, no matter how plausible. ​

7) Waiting around in the AAC as our attendance craters and football program declines and hoping that for some crazy reason the Big 10 will add us is the stupidest strategy that UConn can pursue, which is probably why UConn will pursue this strategy.

- The decline in attendance has more to do with the product on the field than the AAC conference. If UConn was at the top of the standings vying for an elite bowl many more fans would be engaged. I'm curious, what other non-P5 football conference would generate better attendance or upward mobility opportunities? There isn't one, and if there was, I would be advocating for it. Just like the Fox contract was the NBE's best and only option, UConn's participation in the the AAC, for now, is its best and only option. It is what it is.​

​

 

[chapwilvaug72]

put hoops in A-10

put foosbal, when correct coach appears, independent and play natl schedule & at least do ok record wise

play huskers as in nebraska or huskies as in washington for homecoming rival tilt/how bout dis sched:
1, Navy2, sandiegost3, texas, 4,florida,5stanford6, delaware7tenn8duke9michstate10kansas11virginia12nebraska

with this: start construction to double rent pronto because many fans wont get in due to SRO

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The worst part about Whaler starting this thread is it gave you a forum to post your monthly "Scuttle the football program and crawl back to the C7" newsletter.

Trust me there is no need for you to keep posting this, we all know where you stand and we won't forget it. Many of us are looking forward to shoving this up your arse when UCONN gets a conference upgrade.

and for the 10,000 time, if UCONN did this now it would cost them a fortune, they would have to pay 10 million to the AAC and give up their share of the pot of money left behind in the AAC coffers, and that doesn't even take into consideration the huge investment in football they would be writing off and on top of that we would give up the chance for an upgrade and the huge windfall that will bring. When this financial hit is taken into consideration it makes you look incredibly moronic.

Staying in this league is the same thing as scuttling the football AND basketball programs. If you want to save the football program, we need to get out of this league pronto. If you look forward to seeing the football program shut down, then you should be in favor of staying where we are and see how long the BoT lets the football program founder.

 

[upstater]

I can make a list too:

1. Upstater is constantly telling people they lack reading comprehension. When it happens that much maybe it's the writer and not the reader?

2. Please don't confuse me with Waylon. I would never propose that UConn has any choice other than the American.

3. I do think people are missing the one real advantage that the Big East schools have - and why I think most years they will be a top 5 conference: If you are basketball player the Big East is the best league you can play in where you are the BMOC. Almost everywhere else the basketball team is now secondary to the football team.

4. These days your NCAA tourney seed is not the most important thing. Where and who you play is much more important than your seed.

5. It's 2014/2015. If you still think RPI is a legitimate reflection of the quality of a team you should be disqualified from any discussions on CBB topics.

What sentence did you not understand? I can help you with it.

as for #5, glad you and I agree. That was my original point. Sagarin is BS. The tournament doesn't lie.

 

[whaler11]

What sentence did you not understand? I can help you with it.

as for #5, glad you and I agree. That was my original point. Sagarin is BS. The tournament doesn't lie.

Sagarin is weak too, there are much better tools. It's not the RPI though - I assume you know those are different things?

To say all computer ranking are BS is just ignorant.

The non UConn schools in the American today were 1-3 in the tournament last year. If we were to use such a ridiculously small sample size obtained from a small percentage of the schools to determine conference strength... I'm not sure why someone would be so adament that it proves something positive for the American.

 

[upstater]

Sagarin is weak too, there are much better tools. It's not the RPI though - I assume you know those are different things?

To say all computer ranking are BS is just ignorant.

The non UConn schools in the American today were 1-3 in the tournament last year. If we were to use such a ridiculously small sample size obtained from a small percentage of the schools to determine conference strength... I'm not sure why someone would be so adament that it proves something positive for the American.

Not only is your stat wrong, but everything you wrote here is totally irrelevant to anything I've said in this thread.