While I agree that playing in the AAC blows, I don't think it has anything to do with home court advantage. Obviously the crowds aren't as rowdy as they were in the Big East days, but the teams are also a lot worse. Losing to AAC teams is more akin to losing to mid-majors in the OOC schedule back in the day; of course, many of these teams - like Temple, Memphis, etc. - are good enough to beat us but not good enough to generate any type of urgency from either the players or fans. Sometimes, that's the worst combination.
On that note, the thing I hate the most about this conference is the way the games begin to resemble chores more than opportunities. Virtually every game UConn is expected to win - whether they've actually won those games or not is another question - and as a result winning is lukewarm and losing is disastrous. The best part about being a fan is the euphoria you feel during and after big, meaningful victories. You don't get that in the AAC...you would get it a couple times a year in the Big East even during down years. Even the games against ranked SMU teams...it's still SMU.
None of that is an excuse. For whatever reason, this team doesn't take care of business at home like some of the other elite programs, and I've been harping on that for a while. Kansas and Duke never lose at home. And while those two programs represent a possibly unrealistic standard, it sucks that we can't get there or at least close to it. Don't tell me it's just because we lose more than those programs. We lost a combined seven home games during our last two national championship seasons. Our 2014 squad lost to duck*ing Stanford and SMU.
I'd be willing to bet that, proportionately, our road record in the last ten years is more aligned with other blue blood programs than our home record (I'm open to anybody who wants to prove me wrong). At some point, it becomes a valid conversation.