If this conference is so awful, why can't we come close to winning it??

[UConnTrumbull]

well that was naive

If you were on the BY after 2014 when we had won the national title and Louisville left the conference, the narrative was the same. People expected to dominate the league - including myself. Anyone is lying if they said they didn't think that. I guarantee you no one here expected to ever finish 7th in this league. I don't know if you realize what that means... We are above USF, Temple (on a down year), ECU (beat us), Tulane and no one else. Despite injuries I consider this an epic failure.

 

[traitor71]

Good teams are good in any league, bad teams are bad in any league. This is a bad team. I know that is a simplified way of looking at it, and we can debate why they are bad, or what they may have been if healthy, but it is just a bad bad team right now.

 

[Towney007]

We're in the conference because of dog chasing cars with football. Had to grab that wad with no real football culture in the region, no real interest in the region and at the detriment of the successful programs. School deserves it.

But it's where we belong right now. I mean I don't think we've finished in the top 3 in a while, so the wanton elitism going on around here is pretty astounding. Could make a case we're lucky to have this considering how little value the football program brings to the table.

So is what it is. People wanted football. They got it alright.

 

[Letsgohuskies11]

We're in the conference because of dog chasing cars with football. Had to grab that wad with no real football culture in the region, no real interest in the region and at the detriment of the successful programs. School deserves it.

But it's where we belong right now. I mean I don't think we've finished in the top 3 in a while, so the wanton elitism going on around here is pretty astounding. Could make a case we're lucky to have this considering how little value the football program brings to the table.

So is what it is. People wanted football. They got it alright.

it still irks me to no end that UConn sat on its ass during conference realignment and was NOT proactive at all, now we are in this mess and we can only blame ourselves.

 

[MASSconn]

The apologists are actually unbelievable. This team should be winning the REGULAR SEASON title. Not the tournament. Consistency is what showcases growth.

 

[Towney007]

it still irks me to no end that UConn sat on its ass during conference realignment and was NOT proactive at all, now we are in this mess and we can only blame ourselves.

But they wanted 8-5 football teams.

It's like Five Guys Burgers scaling back the quality of their bread n butter (hamburgers) so they could have shi--y organic salad. You're a burger joint, not a health spa.

 

[jgeorge322]

Totally outclassed today, have been many times. We're lucky to be in the half of the conference in basketball and football. Judging by this year, this conference is better than we deserve.

Ironically though the conference is also why you are struggling. Why would a top recruit want to play in aac? Your roster would be much better if this was still obe.

 

[SouthBayHusky]

Top recruits want to play for winning teams. And they want to play for coaches that help get them to the next level. We have had little shortage of highly rated talent when you consider how many four and five star recruits we have got over the last 4-5 years. However, when your record over four years in a crappy conference is 42-34, people pay attention and that is not a winning formula for continuing to get highly rated recruits. And we played the same way we did in a power five conference over the last four years I'm not sure we would be about 500. The numbers don't lie, we can play games and pretend but our performance has been abysmal and paying a coach over $3 million a year demands a better Record then we have had. All of us love the program, and enough with the I'm a bigger fan than you are nonsense. The reality is, we all care and it hurts to watch the storyline that has been written over the last four years nationally, not because of the boneyard and naysayers but because of our performance

 

[yukonyc212]

Ironically though the conference is also why you are struggling. Why would a top recruit want to play in aac? Your roster would be much better if this was still obe.

No... Cincy and SMU are not struggling on a national scale. They are doing just fine.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

We're in the conference because of dog chasing cars with football. Had to grab that wad with no real football culture in the region, no real interest in the region and at the detriment of the successful programs. School deserves it.

But it's where we belong right now. I mean I don't think we've finished in the top 3 in a while, so the wanton elitism going on around here is pretty astounding. Could make a case we're lucky to have this considering how little value the football program brings to the table.

So is what it is. People wanted football. They got it alright.

LMFAO at you or any other nitwit blaming this on football. If you had your druthers and were in the Big East this year we would've finish at or near the bottom of the conference. How many BE teams are we better than? 2?

Look in the mirror and stop it with the football nonsense.

 

[jgeorge322]

No... Cincy and SMU are not struggling on a national scale. They are doing just fine.

Sure there will be some decent teams here and there but sustained success in aac, im not seeing it. The conference just isnt very good. Its best years it will be 7th best. Thats a huge drop off from obe.

 

[The Funster]

Next year the team HAS to start showing some dominance. There are no excuses. UConn should consistently be top 3 in the conference during the regular season.

 

[Palatine]

Top recruits want to play for winning teams. And they want to play for coaches that help get them to the next level. We have had little shortage of highly rated talent when you consider how many four and five star recruits we have got over the last 4-5 years. However, when your record over four years in a crappy conference is 42-34, people pay attention and that is not a winning formula for continuing to get highly rated recruits. And we played the same way we did in a power five conference over the last four years I'm not sure we would be about 500. The numbers don't lie, we can play games and pretend but our performance has been abysmal and paying a coach over $3 million a year demands a better Record then we have had. All of us love the program, and enough with the I'm a bigger fan than you are nonsense. The reality is, we all care and it hurts to watch the storyline that has been written over the last four years nationally, not because of the boneyard and naysayers but because of our performance

We are NOT losing to highly rated talent. We are losing to Wagner, Northeastern and Eastern (or was it Western) Carolina. They are not filled with top recruits or even second tier recruits.

 

[Stainmaster]

All of us love the program, and enough with the I'm a bigger fan than you are nonsense.

No you don't. You love the accolades, not the program. Where the hell were you before the NIT? The dream season? Before '99? Oh that's right, being another fairweather bandwagoner who skipped to the front of the line and took the best program build of all time for granted.

 

[Tenspro2002]

No you don't. You love the accolades, not the program. Where the hell were you before the NIT? The dream season? Before '99? Oh that's right, being another fairweather bandwagoner who skipped to the front of the line and took the best program build of all time for granted.

Were UK fans taking things for granted when they were calling for the heads of Tubby and Gillespie after a mediocre decade?
What about UNC fans and Matt Doherty in the early 2000's?

Why are we the only elite program that should be accepting and excusing a potentially irreversible plummet off the blue blood cliff?

P. S. Aren't you like 20 years old? I don't mean that as an insult, just kind of strange for someone who doesn't even remember 1999 to be lecturing others about appreciating the program's roots.

 

[Stainmaster]

Were UK fans taking things for granted when they were calling for the heads of Tubby and Gillespie after a mediocre decade?
What about UNC fans and Matt Doherty in the early 2000's?

Why are we the only elite program that should be accepting and excusing a potentially irreversible plummet off the blue blood cliff?

P. S. Aren't you like 20 years old? I don't mean that as an insult, just kind of strange for someone who doesn't even remember 1999 to be lecturing others about appreciating the program's roots.

How many of those blue-bloods were relegated to mid-major conferences and gifted with a steaming pile of sanctions in time for the new coach to take over? It also never ceases to make me laugh how you think the proverbial "plummet off the cliff" is a direct result of "accepting and excusing."

To answer your question, I'm a third-generation UConn fan whose family has been going to games since the Hugh Greer era. They suffered through Shabel and Carlson, they chauffeured benefactors across the state in exchange for tickets during the Dee Rowe years, and they were shelling out to go to the early BETs during Perno's time back when they couldn't even pick up an opening-round win. I'm not Tenspro2002, who showed up on campus younger than I am today, witnessed the best season in the entire 100+ year history of the program, and acts like it's a birthright to replicate that year after year. You have no idea what came before your time or how lucky you are to have witnessed this stretch of basketball.

 

[ctchamps]

The apologists are actually unbelievable. This team should be winning the REGULAR SEASON title. Not the tournament. Consistency is what showcases growth.

Your name application is patently false. I am a KotO. I apologize to no one. I wear my Sabatons on my ten toes proudly. I do not accept this season as you so wrongly believe. Nor losing. Nor mediocrity. I hoist a royal standard. Lest you think I jest I have thrown the gauntlet and challenge you to a joust.

I am a proud member of the Knights of the Ollie! We are defenders of the realm! Our Greaves resist bad analysis, OTT proclamations, demands that the demanders would be unable to accomplish.

 

[Tenspro2002]

It also never ceases to make me laugh how you think the proverbial "plummet off the cliff" is a direct result of "accepting and excusing."

This is a ridiculous straw-man that isn't within a hundred miles of the statement I made. Re-read my post. We're plummeting off the cliff of national relevance. Some of that is circumstances. Some of it is poor coaching and recruiting misfires. Whatever the reason, some of us are accepting of it. Others are not.

To answer your question, I'm a third-generation UConn fan whose family has been going to games since the Hugh Greer era. They suffered through Shabel and Carlson, they chauffeured benefactors across the state in exchange for tickets during the Dee Rowe years, and they were shelling out to go to the early BETs during Perno's time back when they couldn't even pick up an opening-round win. I'm not Tenspro2002, who showed up on campus younger than I am today, witnessed the best season in the entire 100+ year history of the program, and acts like it's a birthright to replicate that year after year. You have no idea what came before your time or how lucky you are to have witnessed this stretch of basketball.

So, you're younger than I am (again, nothing wrong with that), but somehow have more perspective than I do on the trajectory of this program, because your family has been around a while? OK, my parents were fans during the Perno era also.

I take nothing for granted, but at the same time I just don't so easily accept the idea that we should give up being a perennial power as we were for nearly 2 decades. I suspect that JC, who you uphold as the gold standard of coaching and toughness, doesn't accept it so easily either.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

We won it last year and have been in the finals the other two years?

 

[huskymagic]

Palatine the conference is awful we just happen to equal the conference in awfulness since 2014 title. SMU and Cinci are top 25 level caliber teams yearly in the conference so they're not awful that's why we can't ever finish ahead of them. The bigger problem is why we can't finish ahead of the Houston and Memphis's of the world or Temples/Tulsa at times. Then again if we were actually playing like the old UCONN combined with SMU, Cinci, and Memphis, Houston, Temple, UCF this conference would be equal to the SEC at least.

That's a big problem no matter how you slice it and can't be reasoned away by the apologists with the we've been to the conference title game 3 years in a row as if that's the same thing as being good and dominating the regular season AAC. Ollie needs to have UCONN performing like Gonzaga, Villanova, Memphis of the Calimari era, etc to keep ourselves nationally relevant.

PS: I would happy to volunteer to help the coaching staff for a bargain salary of 70k a year. I will work with the team on defense and offense. I will do the X's and O's and we will return to the good old days.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Palatine the conference is awful we just happen to equal the conference in awfulness since 2014 title. SMU and Cinci are top 25 level caliber teams yearly in the conference so they're not awful that's why we can't ever finish ahead of them. The bigger problem is why we can't finish ahead of the Houston and Memphis's of the world or Temples/Tulsa at times. Then again if we were actually playing like the old UCONN combined with SMU, Cinci, and Memphis, Houston, Temple, UCF this conference would be equal to the SEC at least.

That's a big problem no matter how you slice it and can't be reasoned away by the apologists with the we've been to the conference title game 3 years in a row as if that's the same thing as being good and dominating the regular season AAC. Ollie needs to have UCONN performing like Gonzaga, Villanova, Memphis of the Calimari era, etc to keep ourselves nationally relevant.

PS: I would happy to volunteer to help the coaching staff for a bargain salary of 70k a year. I will work with the team on defense and offense. I will do the X's and O's and we will return to the good old days.

It's not the X's and O's it's our Jimmy's and Joe's. They just happen to be not very good.

 

[Stainmaster]

PS: I would happy to volunteer to help the coaching staff for a bargain salary of 70k a year. I will work with the team on defense and offense. I will do the X's and O's and we will return to the good old days.

Preserving this for posterity.

 

[SouthBayHusky]

No you don't. You love the accolades, not the program. Where the hell were you before the NIT? The dream season? Before '99? Oh that's right, being another fairweather bandwagoner who skipped to the front of the line and took the best program build of all time for granted.

Let's see, I graduated from Uconn in 1991. Obviously I followed them for four years before that time, so to say I'm a fair weather fan or that I don't understand the program because I have a different opinion is nonsense.

 

[Towney007]

LMFAO at you or any other nitwit blaming this on football. If you had your druthers and were in the Big East this year we would've finish at or near the bottom of the conference. How many BE teams are we better than? 2?

Look in the mirror and stop it with the football nonsense.

If I had my druthers, we'd be 1-AA and not flushing tax payer money down the tube chasing a bunch of fake crap so alumni dorks have an excuse to have more bbq's.

The fact that anyone finds this so difficult to comprehend is beyond me. Conference realignment didn't happen because of basketball or any other sport. It happened because of football. The Big East didn't break up over hoops - it broke up because of football. And the dipsh-- administration was stupid to get into the football game to begin with where there's barely even a market for it, no sustained football culture, etc. They were double stupid for dragging their feet on realignment. The whole thing is a bungled, idiotic mess. Even when they backed their way into a freaking BCS Bowl - they figured out a way to *lose* $1.8 million on it. You still can't even half fill the stadium papering it, the team still sucks and it's the *actual* reason that the basketball team has been iced out of top level conferences. It's the *actual* reason they were left out in the cold. It's the *actual* reason the new Big East didn't want us.

As for how we'd have done this year in that conference there's no way to know. No way to know the degree to which the NBE would have helped this program. Might have been able to draw some better recruits. Might not have lost out on guys like Hamadou. Might not have lost out on Diamond Stone. The impact from probation might not have been felt as acutely. Who knows. But saying the New Big East isn't a better spot for the hoops program to be in - from strictly a *hoops perspective* is crackers.

To me - chasing the power-5 football stuff is a pipe dream. It's not happening. I'm not even sure - given cratering youth football participation, ESPN's continued instability, football in general beginning to suffer from over-saturation... that's it's even worthwhile to pursue on any level. There's *no* correlation between football success and university prestige. But pursuing it we are and that's why we're at. It's because of football. Whether people think that's good or not - that's up to them. But I don't. And haven't, ever. And in this pursuit and trying to sustain things at this rate - there will be some high level casualties - and the worst might be the basketball program. And it's already bleeding. Not dead, far from it, but it's taken some serious licks.

 

[Towney007]

And this stupid ongoing war about who's been around longer and your great perspectives... just stop.

Being functionally literate is really the only skill you need to have to understand that about 5-10 years ago - we were really good at stuff. Now, we're not really as good as we were and don't appear to be trending in the right direction. Blip on the radar? Maybe. I hope. But from what I've been seeing, that doesn't seem to be the case. Who cares how long you've been watching. It's obvious.