Has the conference affiliation finally caught up

[Plebe]

There were people on this board who thought that going to the New Big East was the cure-all for UConn sports. I guess so far that isn't the case. UConn fans need to keep the pressure up to get UConn into the ACC or other P5.

So many fallacies jam-packed into a short post.

Most salient among them: the notion that "fan pressure" can somehow bring about a desired conference reaffiliation.

Another: that anyone ever used the term "cure-all", or anything close, to assess the latest move. I challenge you to provide a quote to this effect.

Is every single loss going to elicit this caliber of panicked non sequiturs from the woodwork? It's like watching a cruel scientific experiment on mice unfold.

 

[bluedevil]

That boat sailed a long time ago.

and sank

 

[hoophuskee]

There were people on this board who thought that going to the New Big East was the cure-all for UConn sports. I guess so far that isn't the case. UConn fans need to keep the pressure up to get UConn into the ACC or other P5.

IMO that was not the case. I think a lot of people thought UCONN would be better off in the Big East. Not that it was "cure-all."

And they are probably right. Both men and women had had enormous recruiting success the last 2 years.

 

[npignatjr]

You realize our bigs are allowed to beat somebody else right? We got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING out of our 3rd yr starting post against a team in which she was half a foot taller than, if we get ANYTHING out of her tonight we win the game!

3 inches 2 Arkansas starters 6 2

 

[Dokey]

First, I have argued forever that playing one pastie after another will eventually catch up with UConn.
Second, forget this ranking of high school players. Talent is exploding across the country and world faster than the ranking folks can keep up.
That means there is nothing wrong with Geno coaching. Parity just caught up with him.
So what are the problems with UConn that it’s fans refuse to recognize?
Let’s start with ONO, a talented but not top player, who Boneyarders continue to push as an AA candidate. She has never matched up well against a quality opponent. Some in the wbb world have laughed at my suggestion that Mya Hollingshed of Colorado is a legit AA candidate. Playing in the toughest conference, she leads the PAC-12 in double doubles. I would take her, two inches shorter, over ONO in a heartbeat.
Then there’s CW, a player I think has immense talent but is as inconsistent as hell. She needs to play within a traditional Geno ball movement offense. More than any other player she suffers when Anna isn’t on the floor. As for Evina, she is an excellent player but not one that carry a team without strong support (Anna again, though not exclusively). Aubrey, finally, is a wild colt capable of disrupting the opposition almost as much as she disrupts her own team. As for the freshmen, Paige is in a class all her own who will set unbelievable career records. Edwards can be a dominant force in the inside but right now she plays more like an elephant than a leopard. Nika shows evidence of becoming a solid player, not a superstar, but I hedge my bet. The rest of the freshman remain question marks.

What are UConn’s other weaknesses? They simply cannot defend a really good shooter. Top shooters pick them apart. But the chief problem is you can’t rely on recruiting class rankings. It is easy to identify a Paige but one player does not a team make. The most dominant team last year—sorry SC—was Oregon, loaded at nearly every position, kinda reminding us of previous UConn teams from the undefeated years.
The times, they are a-changing.

 

[NormanDale]

There were people on this board who thought that going to the New Big East was the cure-all for UConn sports. I guess so far that isn't the case. UConn fans need to keep the pressure up to get UConn into the ACC or other P5.

That is NEVER going to happen, football is the appeal to P5 conferences and UConn's football team is utterly abysmal and the school is broke and can't spend the money needed to turn things around!

 

[LoyalFanCT]

That is NEVER going to happen, football is the appeal to P5 conferences and UConn's football team is utterly abysmal and the school is broke and can't spend the money needed to turn things around!

In 2018, a Clemson fan site put UConn on a short list for ACC membership. The boat might have sailed but it has come back to port! Hope we can say bye to the new big east soon. Re: ACC Expansion post 2023? UConn, Cincy, Navy, WVa., USF or ?

 

[CTBballfan243]

Neither the ACC or any other P5 conference is expanding. If anything we will see P5 contraction. The object is to eliminate the dead wood and divide the P5 $$$ among fewer teams.

 

[LoyalFanCT]

Neither the ACC or any other P5 conference is expanding. If anything we will see P5 contraction. The object is to eliminate the dead wood and divide the P5 $$$ among fewer teams.

The only thing that comes in the way of that is if the ACC channel is struggling and they need to add new markets, like Hartford-New Haven or metro NYC.

 

[Charliebball]

Let's face facts............the UConn teams of the past few years have been very good but flawed teams that have steamrolled their way through mostly lousy regular season conference competition only to be eventually defeated by really competitive teams in the tournament..........winning games against inferior competition by 30-40 points every game lulls us into overrating our team .........UConn is good enough to compete for an NC but it's going to take a whole lot to go right for that to happen......

 

[hoopsfan22]

Neither the ACC or any other P5 conference is expanding. If anything we will see P5 contraction. The object is to eliminate the dead wood and divide the P5 $$$ among fewer teams.

Seems like the size of the pie is currently at its peak, so for the big money schools the next logical thing is to kill off the dead wood in their conferences, or go start a super league of the top 25-30 programs where they keep all of the money, have their our tournaments/playoffs, negotiate their own contracts, and ditch the NCAA and its arcane bureaucracy.

 

[chrissaran]

Olivia has to show up in the big games. Two points and two rebounds Thursday. She's better than that.

 

[hoophuskee]

First, I have argued forever that playing one pastie after another will eventually catch up with UConn.
Second, forget this ranking of high school players. Talent is exploding across the country and world faster than the ranking folks can keep up.
That means there is nothing wrong with Geno coaching. Parity just caught up with him.
So what are the problems with UConn that it’s fans refuse to recognize?
Let’s start with ONO, a talented but not top player, who Boneyarders continue to push as an AA candidate. She has never matched up well against a quality opponent. Some in the wbb world have laughed at my suggestion that Mya Hollingshed of Colorado is a legit AA candidate. Playing in the toughest conference, she leads the PAC-12 in double doubles. I would take her, two inches shorter, over ONO in a heartbeat.
Then there’s CW, a player I think has immense talent but is as inconsistent as hell. She needs to play within a traditional Geno ball movement offense. More than any other player she suffers when Anna isn’t on the floor. As for Evina, she is an excellent player but not one that carry a team without strong support (Anna again, though not exclusively). Aubrey, finally, is a wild colt capable of disrupting the opposition almost as much as she disrupts her own team. As for the freshmen, Paige is in a class all her own who will set unbelievable career records. Edwards can be a dominant force in the inside but right now she plays more like an elephant than a leopard. Nika shows evidence of becoming a solid player, not a superstar, but I hedge my bet. The rest of the freshman remain question marks.

What are UConn’s other weaknesses? They simply cannot defend a really good shooter. Top shooters pick them apart. But the chief problem is you can’t rely on recruiting class rankings. It is easy to identify a Paige but one player does not a team make. The most dominant team last year—sorry SC—was Oregon, loaded at nearly every position, kinda reminding us of previous UConn teams from the undefeated years.
The times, they are a-changing.

I don't agree with what you're saying. You speak of "parity" and "recruiting" not meaning as much yet you cite Oregon-- who had Ionescu. Ionescu was a top 5 player. In her same class was Cox. - No surprise she was an elite player as a junior and helped lead her team to a title. No surprise two years prior the top player was Wilson and they won. One year Notre Dame won - they had Turner and Shepard top 5 and their wings were all-americans.

There has been an understanding on here that possibly CWill and Liv would not be so good - so that possibly has made me probably wrong now and in the future possibly because for example I thought Liv would be an A/A. But what does my probable wrong prediction have to do with parity? And I've been in the major minority with Liv so your accusation of UCONN fans overall imo is wrong. Most BYERs on here shared your skepticism of the 2, right?

In regards to top players, some top rated H/S players never perform near their rankings though but that has been the case forever too. Thus that has nothing to do with parity either. But one thing we see is-- that if you have one of the overall best players (see my reference above Wilson, COx and Ionescu), then there is a good chance you are going to be elite, right?

And by the way, UCONN had Walker leave early. What do you think would have been likely outcome if she were playing instead CWill vs Arkansas? And what about if she were playing vs Tenn - suppose UCONN could have sat Paige a little more?

While I've been wrong a bit and may continue to be I'm a minority. Yet- your broad accusation that UCONN fans not recognizing the players struggling that you cited I think is highly exaggerated. From this board alone many have had concerns with the very players you cite. All it means is that this year UCONN might not be good enough. It has nothing do with not recognizing parity.

 

[visitingcock]

I have a pro-Big 5 bias. As an “SEC SEC SEC” fan, that bias is even more pronounced.

nevertheless, UConn is UConn. The rules are different. As long as the tradition of strong OOC scheduling is continued, the relative weakness of the Big East doesn’t affect UConn. 20200/2021 is an anomaly for everybody.

keep on scheduling the likes of SCar, Tennessee, Oregon, Baylor, Oregon, Notre Dame, Louisvillle etc. . Good practice for the tourney run and keeps tv eyeballs and money coming in.

money: that’s the only real disadvantage of not being in a so-called Power five conference. You don’t share in the mega tv football money. Keep your huge fan following and fill Storrs when normalcy returns! You’ll be fine.

 

[Plebe]

The thread starter's proposition brings to mind something penned by
H.L. Mencken. (I paraphrase, as I don't have the 6 volumes of The Prejudices at hand.)

For every difficult, vexatious problem there is one, simple, easy, solution.

And it's wrong!

Amid the din, pearls shine.

My curiosity piqued, I researched the Mencken quote, which I believe is: "there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong."

Here's a fantastic article sifting through the import and provenance (and history of misattribution) of said quote:

There Is Always a Well-Known Solution to Every Human Problem—Neat, Plausible, and Wrong – Quote Investigator®

quoteinvestigator.com

 

[jabstep]

Yes, I'm sure that playing the likes of Washington and Colorado and Pitt and Wisconsin and Vanderbilt and Kansas would make all the difference, suddenly turning a B game into an A+ game.

This is all armchair spitballing, at best; sophistry would be more accurate.

There is zero empirical evidence that being in a "tough" or "easy" conference per se makes a lick of difference in team development or postseason results. Back in 2012, when the Big 12 was recognized as an extremely tough conference, Baylor, deemed the heavy national title favorite, still suffered the shocking loss to Louisville in the Sweet 16. Contrast that to 2019, when the Big 12 outside of Baylor was a decidedly weak conference, and yet Baylor, though not the clear singular favorite, won it all.

Fans and coaches of certain teams in certain conferences have a Pavlovian compulsion to spout clichés and platitudes about how wonderful/competitive/brutal their conference is and how their specific conference affiliation prepares them uniquely for epic postseason conquests. It's really just a bunch of PR baloney.

I disagree with you about the Pavlovian compulsion of playing tougher opponents. For example, we don't play enough close games usually until we get to the final 4. In close games, you know when to call timeout after a rebound with 3.9 seconds left. You know who to foul if you are behind to get more possessions. You know how to press to force the team into turnovers or speeding up play. You know these things because you practice them and go thru them during the course of the season. Geno has had to worry about COVID complications and getting 7 freshmen to learn basic offense and defense. Lots of competitive games are helpful.

 

[Plebe]

I disagree with you about the Pavlovian compulsion of playing tougher opponents. For example, we don't play enough close games usually until we get to the final 4. In close games, you know when to call timeout after a rebound with 3.9 seconds left. You know who to foul if you are behind to get more possessions. You know how to press to force the team into turnovers or speeding up play. You know these things because you practice them and go thru them during the course of the season. Geno has had to worry about COVID complications and getting 7 freshmen to learn basic offense and defense. Lots of competitive games are helpful.

You have managed the dual feat of both missing my point and, unwittingly, backing up my point (as well as the wisdom of Mencken and our resident mensch @Sifaka ).

My point was about conference affiliation per se being an advantage in postseason play. Your point is about experience in close games being an advantage — quite a separate question. But let's run with your point anyway.

I guess that all that close-game experience in "competitive" conferences must explain why the Final Fours over the past two-plus decades have been so thoroughly dominated by conferences such as:

— the SEC, which has won exactly 1 out of the last 20 national championships.
— the ACC, which has boasted the last team standing in a whopping 2 out of the past 25 Final Fours.
— the Pac-12, which hasn't held aloft the national trophy in 30 years now.

I guess it also explains why Tennessee, having played in multiple close games, was able to prevail on January 21 in a close game over UConn, who up until then had played no close games. Oh wait ...

It bears repeating: "Neat, plausible, and wrong." Credit to Mencken.

 

[hoophuskee]

I disagree with you about the Pavlovian compulsion of playing tougher opponents. For example, we don't play enough close games usually until we get to the final 4. In close games, you know when to call timeout after a rebound with 3.9 seconds left. You know who to foul if you are behind to get more possessions. You know how to press to force the team into turnovers or speeding up play. You know these things because you practice them and go thru them during the course of the season. Geno has had to worry about COVID complications and getting 7 freshmen to learn basic offense and defense. Lots of competitive games are helpful.

But we've won with Lobo, Bird/DT, Maya and Stewart. They've obviously played enough close games like you suggest and had a ton of blowouts and yet they still win lots of titles. So now we lost one game-- just like nearly every team in America. So all of a sudden it's wrong what UCONN has been doing for 25+ years?

The formula for UCONN has resulted in getting more number 1 recruits than everyone else, getting to more Final Fours than everyone else, and winning more championships than everyone else. That's a flawed formula?????? ????? ??????

 

[UConnCat]

— the SEC, which has won exactly 1 out of the last 20 national championships.
— the ACC, which has boasted the last team standing in a whopping 2 out of the past 25 Final Fours.
— the Pac-12, which hasn't held aloft the national trophy in 30 years now.

Yeah sure, but how have the teams in those conferences done in "close games where it has been single possession with under a minute to go?" Much better than UConn I bet.

 

[Rb335]

First, I believe the big east is an improvement from the AAC, but it is not substantially better. With the exception of DePaul, it is going to be 18 games every year that should be relatively easy for the huskies.

Last year, our team beat up on AAC teams and lost all major games. Our best wins were Tennessee and DePaul, very similar to this year. And both Tennessee wins weren’t overly convincing.

We’ve lost our two best players from last year, and replaced them with Bueckers and Westbrook. So I’m not sure where the merit in uconn being a top 5 team or vastly improved comes from? I think we are ranked more on program reputation than anything else.

So far this year we’ve had two close games against top 15-20 caliber teams. Does that mean that we are approximately a 15-20th ranked team? That’s hard to judge because we have so many games that give us relatively meaningless data points.

Example, ONO was off to a really great start this year. This board was praising that she finally put it together. But so far this year, she is averaging 16ppg against unranked opponents, and 8 ppg in 3 games against our ranked opponents, none of whom are top 10. So has she figured it out, or is she still able to only play well against weak conference teams?

I think we can all agree that there is a lot to learn from the Arkansas game. Imagine uconn in the SEC, having to also play Kentucky, South Carolina, Miss St, and aTm on top of any non conference schedule! We’d surely have a few losses every year, but would learn so much and be tested.

It all comes back to having so many unchallenging big east games. You can get away with it when you are head and shoulders above everyone talent wise. But when you have a team merely in the mix, you need the tough games to really learn. It shouldn’t have to all come in the non conference schedule.

 

[MSGRET]

Yeah sure, but how have the teams in those conferences done in "close games where it has been single possession with under a minute to go?" Much better than UConn I bet.

No if they had done much better than UConn, then UConn wouldn't have 11 NC.

 

[hoophuskee]

Yeah sure, but how have the teams in those conferences done in "close games where it has been single possession with under a minute to go?" Much better than UConn I bet.

You are possibly right with a few teams. UCONN can brag they win the most titles while the other teams can brag the few they win it's because it's close. Not really quite the problem some on this thread think that it is though.

 

[Plebe]

Yeah sure, but how have the teams in those conferences done in "close games where it has been single possession with under a minute to go?" Much better than UConn I bet.

So UConn should have only close games decided in the final minute — but never lose any of them. So one should conclude.

 

[CocoHusky]

So many fallacies jam-packed into a short post.
Most salient among them: the notion that "fan pressure" can somehow bring about a desired conference reaffiliation.
Another: that anyone ever used the term "cure-all", or anything close, to assess the latest move. I challenge you to provide a quote to this effect.
Is every single loss going to elicit this caliber of panicked non sequiturs from the woodwork? It's like watching a cruel scientific experiment on mice unfold.

Updated with bolded items to account for the Arkansas loss.
The BY has long established every UCONN WCBB loss MUST BE absurdly attributed to one or more of the following:
a) UCONN player(s) choked.
b) The refs were incompetent.
b.1) Dee Kantner called the game and she hates UCONN.
c) ND flopped.
c.1 Skylar Diggins exaggerated contact.
c.2 Madison Cable undercuts.
c.3 Michaela Mabrey is the worst.
c.4 Marina Mabrey is worst than her sister.
c.5 Arike is a dirty player.
c.6 Dungee pushed off and it wasn't called
d) Geno got out coached.
d.1 By Tara, Muffet, Vic , Jeff ( really?), or Kim or Neighbors
e) Geno can't recruit.
e.1) Geno can't recruit bigs.
f) Geno is too stubborn.
g) Geno Turtles up in close games
h) The team was obviously missing Marissa Mosley or Shea
I) Geno didn't give her (them) enough minutes.
j) We are in the wrong conference