In praise of a weak conference

[rvwsleep]

There's a good article titled "Presenting UConn in Conference Realignment" on the boneyard blog on this subject. It's worth a look.
You can reach the blog by clicking on the first thread "Links to blogs..." then scroll down to "other blogs"
then click on " Boneyard Blog"

 

[VAUConnFan]

What would really undermine my theory is pointing out the teams from weak conferences that have won NCs since Stanford's last one. You could pinpoint perhaps two, UConn in 1995 and UConn in 2014..

One should also consider UConn's conference schedule in 2002. At the end of the season only one Big East team was ranked in the Top 25.

 

[Icebear]

Finally someone else reports a problem I have been dealing with for weeks. I have not found a solution except for rebooting and that only solves it for awhile.

OT: why did my avatar change when I didn't change it, and why does it let me upload a new avatar but not display it? Why do I keep seeing a colonial soldier? Old man. Confused. Help?

 

[hjoerring]

I think we make too much noise about conferences. The FB guys want to get out of the AAC because it's not good enough- although they cannot beat anyone; MB wants out even though one-half of the teams will give them a go-for-it; and, WBB feels it as a punishment. I am a Stanford U supporter because they worked their ass-off in a Pac10 conf and made it to the final 4 every year and, they were one of, if not the most feared team come tournament time. They also got a lot of top recruits. Coaching and tradition can take you far. As for the AAC, I think it is about investment. Are these schools willing to go the distance or only half way. They are located in talent full areas and some of them have money (even more than Uconn). My only issue with the conf is that 50% would like out and are actively kissing ...... to materialize it. So, it is too unstable. (At the last FB game the stadium was ghostly empty. In the 'real' world of FB you go to games and fill the stadium even if you are 1 and 10 . Not just when you are winning. Going to the game is what you do on saturdays. I think it's shameful that the FB portion of the boneyard talk about expanding the stadium, get a new coach, AD, talk about our onward march towards- AAU, an empty sign if ever there was one)

 

[DavidK]

Another aspect is for the fans, a lot less road games local. Before BC, Providence, St John's, Seaton Hall, and Rutgers were all driving distance, now the closest is Temple I believe.

 

[Vowelguy]

I think we make too much noise about conferences.

Payout from P5 conferences: ~$20 million
AAC payout: ~$2 million

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I've said vowelguy's point before - in the long term, this is what is going to hurt you, not the lack of WBB competition that some focus on.

Arizona is playing Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl this year. Arizona won the PAC 12 south, has a 10-3 record, got stomped in the PAC12 conference championship (by Oregon, who is in the playoff) and is #10 on the rankings done by the committee that places the top 6 bowls.

Our opponent is the ONLY representative from the 5 non-power5 conferences, taking the one spot guaranteed to them. They are ranked #20, but met the criteria to grab a spot. For the other 4 non-power conferences, including the AAC, no one in the 6 bowls.

That's the problem in a nutshell.

 

[HoopsFan21]

I've said vowelguy's point before - in the long term, this is what is going to hurt you, not the lack of WBB competition that some focus on.

Arizona is playing Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl this year. Arizona won the PAC 12 south, has a 10-3 record, got stomped in the PAC12 conference championship (by Oregon, who is in the playoff) and is #10 on the rankings done by the committee that places the top 6 bowls.

Our opponent is the ONLY representative from the 5 non-power5 conferences, taking the one spot guaranteed to them. They are ranked #20, but met the criteria to grab a spot. For the other 4 non-power conferences, including the AAC, no one in the 6 bowls.

That's the problem in a nutshell.

Clearly some one at UConn at some point pissed off some very important and influential conference officials.

 

[Ozzie Nelson]

I intend to enjoy this years team despite The Boneyard.

 

[HiDribble]

Not having to play Providence or Seton Hall ever again is a huge plus.

 

[Vowelguy]

Not having to play Providence or Seton Hall ever again is a huge plus.

Seton hall is actually 9-1 so far, and is the highest rated team in the big east.

 

[triaddukefan]

Not having to play Providence or Seton Hall ever again is a huge plus.

im sure the feeling is mutual

 

[j66kicker]

Clearly some one at UConn at some point pissed off some very important and influential conference officials.

??? UCONN's football program is a joke - if any of the P5 conferences were looking to expand, UCONN wouldn't even cross their mind for a nanosecond. UCONN has created their own situation by not making the commitment to football - no need to piss anyone off on top of that.

 

[j66kicker]

Finally someone else reports a problem I have been dealing with for weeks. I have not found a solution except for rebooting and that only solves it for awhile.

For the past several weeks, about every other day my avatar is replaced by someone else's. The 'someone else' changes, but it's always another BY member's. Suspect it only displays this switched avatar to me (or, in your case, to you). Next session it goes back to normal.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Hmm. If this is spawned by my theory, then you must have missed the part about tremendous coach and great talent. There are not 330 teams with a tremendous coach and great talent to get them to the Final Four. In my opinion there have been four; four teams that have precisely the desired "system" for getting to the Final Four of a tremendous coach with great talent. One could argue for six, maybe even eight, but certainly not 330, or 99.9%. Out of my four that I think have the "system" of tremendous coaches and great talent, all got to the Final Four frequently when they had great talent, but only one failed to win a NC in the past twenty years. Indeed, if you expand to six, as some people consider Blair and Mulkey to be tremendous coaches, there still remains only one with that "system" not to get a NC. Only Waltz might be put in the tremendous coach category without a NC, but the Cardinals have not consistently got the level of talent as the Cardinal.

It's a theory; it's circumstantial evidence. I may be wrong, would not be surprised if I was. Heck, you could argue that VanDerveer is not a tremendous coach, challenging my theory that way. You could assert that the Pac-10 was weak right after the USC days, rather than the Stanford days, thus VanDerveer does qualify as having won from a weak conference. Yet what you bring up is largely spurious and irrelevant to the point, indicating you blocked out the part about tremendous coach and great talent, which certainly does not apply to 330 or 99% of Division I, including Duke and UNC.

I know from your posting history it's very important to you to win arguments, no matter what kind of reasoning it takes. Let me help. What would really undermine my theory is pointing out the teams from weak conferences that have won NCs since Stanford's last one. You could pinpoint perhaps two, UConn in 1995 and UConn in 2014. I'm not sure the AAC last year should be considered weak, but if you want to use that to bolster your argument, go for it. Of course, I'll reiterate once again that I consider Auriemma to be a cut above even a "tremendous" coach, focusing kids on perfection as opposed to beating the competition.

Ah, but now you can challenge that discriminating between tremendous and more than tremendous is totally subjective, that Auriemma should be considered in the same "tremendous coach" category and since he has won at least one title from a weak conference my theory has been disproven. That's better logic and evidence than what you've submitted so far. If you want to consider that a "win" for you, let's call it quits.

And Digger I know from you past history that you love to toss out statements of an interesting theory and then when a poster offers something else you get huffy and genially state that they are disagreeing with you because they have to "win an argument" against you, while at the same time you taking your original statement, changing it, and then saying, "You should all know that's what I really meant."

So it starts with "I have a theory, based only on the circumstantial evidence of Stanford, that playing in a weak conference makes a team less ready for the NCAA tournament." You use Stanford as an example, and for you of course now the winning of an NC as your sole criteria for whether you are "ready for the NCAA tournament." So I questioned that assumption, noting the Cardinal's seemingly great readiness for the tournament in winning through to 6 FFs and two NC games in recent years, compiling a 28-7 record behind only UConn in those years. Never once were they so "unready" from conference play that they did not make at least the Sweet 16. It was not they who would get knocked off in the first round like Notre Dame team with great resources and great coach in 2009 that got to play a bunch of games against the NC-game teams UConn and Louisville and a handful of other conference-mate Tourney teams, and likewise for a UTenn team that bailed in a first-round game to Ball State even though they'd fought through the ferociously tough SEC slate. No, those teams have won NCs during the last 20 years, even if for one it was 13 years ago, so even though their Tourney record in recent years is well behind Stanford's, no one could ever say that they had been unready for tourney play. A team wins 80% of their tourney games in the last 7 years, but clearly they were not ready for the tourney because they were unable to overcome UConn, and Baylor and that much more battle-hardened UTenn for that NC. Priceless.

And why is 80% not a good-enough stat? Why does it show they couldn't beat anyone tough (UConn in 2008 was obviously just weak I guess) and your response is that they have a top coach and top resources, so that means they need to win an NC. Circuitous reasoning on your part as usual of course -- they've done pretty well so they must have one of the best coaches and the best resources. Using your logic, why not state that since Tara hasn't won an NC in 22 years that she's not a top coach anymore, and that since they haven't had Maya+Tina or Griner+Sims or Parker+SupportingCast that they haven't had the coaching or the top resources to win an NC?

I wasn't necessarily saying that the theory that playing in a weakly competitive conference like the B1G could leave you open to a quick knockout in the Tourney. You just picked the wrong team to use as an example, a team that wins 80% of its Tourney games recently. Then when called on it you have to run behind an "Oh what I really meant was that they have a tremendous coach (maybe or maybe not) and top resources (but no superstar, just a very good player with a solid cast), so the reason that they are a failure in the last 20 years is just their conference issues. Duke with greater resources in the ACC is not in the discussion for you because obviously they have never had a good coach in the last 20 years, which can be proved because they've never won an NC even with their far greater recruiting resources.

So choose the wrong team, the 80% good team, then throw out the usual snarky comments about "you always need to win" (as if you don't, because you're such a nice inoffensive guy who never stoops to such low behavior) when you can't think of anything worthwhile to say.

Just a suggestion as maybe a better response in the future. "Yeah, maybe a team that wins like Stanford does was not the right argument for my point, but look how badly Ohio St. usually plays after a lethargic B1G schedule, and the rest of the teams in the B1G haven't sniffed an FF in the last 9 years." Okay, you say that and I concede, weak conference play might leave you ready to be shell-shocked early in the tourney. But to pick on the 2nd most winning team in recent years? Give me a break.

 

[Ozzie Nelson]

And Digger I know from you past history that you love to toss out statements of an interesting theory and then when a poster offers something else you get huffy and genially state that they are disagreeing with you because they have to "win an argument" against you, while at the same time you taking your original statement, changing it, and then saying, "You should all know that's what I really meant."

So it starts with "I have a theory, based only on the circumstantial evidence of Stanford, that playing in a weak conference makes a team less ready for the NCAA tournament." You use Stanford as an example, and for you of course now the winning of an NC as your sole criteria for whether you are "ready for the NCAA tournament." So I questioned that assumption, noting the Cardinal's seemingly great readiness for the tournament in winning through to 6 FFs and two NC games in recent years, compiling a 28-7 record behind only UConn in those years. Never once were they so "unready" from conference play that they did not make at least the Sweet 16. It was not they who would get knocked off in the first round like Notre Dame team with great resources and great coach in 2009 that got to play a bunch of games against the NC-game teams UConn and Louisville and a handful of other conference-mate Tourney teams, and likewise for a UTenn team that bailed in a first-round game to Ball State even though they'd fought through the ferociously tough SEC slate. No, those teams have won NCs during the last 20 years, even if for one it was 13 years ago, so even though their Tourney record in recent years is well behind Stanford's, no one could ever say that they had been unready for tourney play. A team wins 80% of their tourney games in the last 7 years, but clearly they were not ready for the tourney because they were unable to overcome UConn, and Baylor and that much more battle-hardened UTenn for that NC. Priceless.

And why is 80% not a good-enough stat? Why does it show they couldn't beat anyone tough (UConn in 2008 was obviously just weak I guess) and your response is that they have a top coach and top resources, so that means they need to win an NC. Circuitous reasoning on your part as usual of course -- they've done pretty well so they must have one of the best coaches and the best resources. Using your logic, why not state that since Tara hasn't won an NC in 22 years that she's not a top coach anymore, and that since they haven't had Maya+Tina or Griner+Sims or Parker+SupportingCast that they haven't had the coaching or the top resources to win an NC?

I wasn't necessarily saying that the theory that playing in a weakly competitive conference like the B1G could leave you open to a quick knockout in the Tourney. You just picked the wrong team to use as an example, a team that wins 80% of its Tourney games recently. Then when called on it you have to run behind an "Oh what I really meant was that they have a tremendous coach (maybe or maybe not) and top resources (but no superstar, just a very good player with a solid cast), so the reason that they are a failure in the last 20 years is just their conference issues. Duke with greater resources in the ACC is not in the discussion for you because obviously they have never had a good coach in the last 20 years, which can be proved because they've never won an NC even with their far greater recruiting resources.

So choose the wrong team, the 80% good team, then throw out the usual snarky comments about "you always need to win" (as if you don't, because you're such a nice inoffensive guy who never stoops to such low behavior) when you can't think of anything worthwhile to say.

Just a suggestion as maybe a better response in the future. "Yeah, maybe a team that wins like Stanford does was not the right argument for my point, but look how badly Ohio St. usually plays after a lethargic B1G schedule, and the rest of the teams in the B1G haven't sniffed an FF in the last 9 years." Okay, you say that and I concede, weak conference play might leave you ready to be shell-shocked early in the tourney. But to pick on the 2nd most winning team in recent years? Give me a break.

Here is a break...

 

[JS]

Here is a break...

What's needed is a break from the tone, and content, of personal attack. That can't continue.

 

[uconnfan68]

Wanna bet?

This WCBB we're talking about... nothing else.

 

[reno tony]

Finally someone else reports a problem I have been dealing with for weeks. I have not found a solution except for rebooting and that only solves it for awhile.

That sounds fun, maybe the moderators could set that up as an option for us..... random avatars.

 

[meyers7]

Payout from P5 conferences: ~$20 million
AAC payout: ~$2 million

There's the point. It's not about who WBB plays or who MBB plays or who FB plays, it's all about the $$$$. And AAC is at a huge disadvantage.