James Wiseman announcing tomorrow

[tzznandrew]

The best example of what being outside of the P5 is right here.

P5 schools pray other schools in their conference, especially “rivals” never get coveted talent. Here I. The G-whocares group of conferences, we pray Christmas comes early so that our rivals get talent so that maybe someone in the media will give us a few lines of ink in a publication somewhere next season. Yeehaw.

When we were in the Big East I wanted all the teams we competed against to have the best talent, and I wanted them to go far in the tournament. I just wanted us to have better ones and for us to go farther. I pulled for Louisville, Syracuse, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, even Pitt. Near the acrimonious end, that stopped. But unless you're Duke/UNC or a few others, everyone either hates just one team (SEC all hates UK) or one specific rival. We never really had a rival, or at least not in the sense of UNC/Duke, etc., so I never had that passionate hatred.

 

[gampelcrazies]

When we were in the Big East I wanted all the teams we competed against to have the best talent, and I wanted them to go far in the tournament. I just wanted us to have better ones and for us to go farther. I pulled for Louisville, Syracuse, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, even Pitt. Near the acrimonious end, that stopped. But unless you're Duke/UNC or a few others, everyone either hates just one team (SEC all hates UK) or one specific rival. We never really had a rival, or at least not in the sense of UNC/Duke, etc., so I never had that passionate hatred.

I never once rooted for any big east team besides UConn. I hated them all!

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

I never once rooted for any big east team besides UConn. I hated them all!

My buddy’s dad baseball at Seton Hall in the 80s. They were never really a threat to us so that was a fun secondary rooting interest.

 

[BUConn10]

Nah man, from my perspective, I just want to play in big games. The better teams in the conference, the more big games.

That’s kind of my point though. It’s simply an alternate view of what we are reduced to by no fault of our own performance as a basketball program.

 

[BUConn10]

When we were in the Big East I wanted all the teams we competed against to have the best talent, and I wanted them to go far in the tournament. I just wanted us to have better ones and for us to go farther. I pulled for Louisville, Syracuse, Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, even Pitt. Near the acrimonious end, that stopped. But unless you're Duke/UNC or a few others, everyone either hates just one team (SEC all hates UK) or one specific rival. We never really had a rival, or at least not in the sense of UNC/Duke, etc., so I never had that passionate hatred.

No it wasn’t hatred.

But you would NEVER log into Twitter right at 8AM with your fingers crossed to see where some elite recruit decided to go, hoping it’s your conference mate, or even conference rival.

 

[temery]

I never once rooted for any big east team besides UConn. I hated them all!

I always rooted for Big East teams unless they were playing UConn.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

The conference still sucks, but w/ UConn doing what it's needed to do for years now and Memphis pulling in a recruiting class like this.... it's looking like a pretty darn legit conference in 2 years. Wichita State will stay good, Cincinnati has consistently hovered around the top 25, UCF and Houston continue to figure it out and Temple and Tulsa have at least maintained a floor. If SMU can stay the course, you're looking at a pretty darn good hoops conference.

The issue's always going to be USF, ECU and Tulane and whether they can get their lives together. Tulane though - is looking like they should.

A leagues rep grows from the top down not the other way .
If you have legitimate power teams and even more importantly players who become famous in your first 6-7 spots than recruiting for the ECU’s And Tulane’s become a lot easier.
UConn was able to recruit nationally largely on the strength of Big East mid 80’s.
success. Players like Ewing getting drafted first overall helped.
To be honest You can attract top coaches up and down also , no Georgetown, Nova , St John’s success no Jim Calhoun.

 

[tzznandrew]

I never once rooted for any big east team besides UConn. I hated them all!

Well then you were foolishly shooting yourself in the foot, because the better they were the more they tested UConn, and the more they tested UConn the higher their RPI and the more success we had on the court and in recruiting. Further, the farther other teams went, the more money UConn got.

It's no surprise that those great UConn teams that couldn't get into the FF played in a weaker league.

 

[AllAbout5]

I always rooted for Big East teams unless they were playing UConn.

or unless it was georgetown or syracuse or villanova. but the conference has changed

 

[August_West]

I always rooted for Big East teams unless they were playing UConn.

pretty much.

But I could never bring myself to root for Pitt.

I cant quite remember but I think I even rooted for Syracuse over Kansas in 03.

Because that made us the uncrowned national champion.

 

[August_West]

No it wasn’t hatred.

But you would NEVER log into Twitter right at 8AM with your fingers crossed to see where some elite recruit decided to go, hoping it’s your conference mate, or even conference rival.

Twitter was barely out of the womb when we left the Big East. Certainly it was not nearly as ubiquitous back then as it is now. So there is no way to know that.

 

[August_West]

Three words -- dry rub ribs.

Except for Rendezvous.

They do hot and fast with a frequent mop. and they are baby back!



Weird that the most famous Rib place in Memphis (Rendezvous) doesnt make Memphis style Ribs:
Dry Rubbed St. Louis cut Spare ribs.

 

[superjohn]

I always rooted for Big East teams unless they were playing UConn.

Me too, I kind of thought we all did.

 

[djct1999]

I always rooted for Big East teams unless they were playing UConn.

This philosophy cost me in so many NCAA tourney pools. I would always have 6 or 7 Big East teams in the Sweet 16. I felt we were invincible and then 4 or 5 of them would lose in the opening round.

 

[StunningSteve]

The announcement should come within the hour. No matter what, both Dan and Penny have been such good fits at UConn and Memphis. And they're both so young...

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Me too, I kind of thought we all did.

I never rooted for Syracuse under any circumstances. If they played Duke I rooted for Duke. Gross but true.

 

[Wordbomar]

I always rooted for Big East teams unless they were playing UConn.

Agreed. All except the Cuse.

 

[intlzncster]

pretty much.

But I could never bring myself to root for Pitt.

I cant quite remember but I think I even rooted for Syracuse over Kansas in 03.

Because that made us the uncrowned national champion.

For me it was Cuse. I took enormous pleasure in their crushing defeats year after year. 2003 was a tough time for me.

I always rooted for Pitt in the ncaa tournament, because it was a miracle when they'd make it out of the 1st weekend; As one of the perennial better OBE teams, they'd continuously make the conference look bad. I was always like come on guys, wtf.

 

[RichZ]

I never once rooted for any big east team besides UConn. I hated them all!

I would always root for our Big East rivals except (obviously) against us. Most of them, anyway. Could not/would not ever root for 'cuse or Louisville.

 

[StunningSteve]

Memphis has made this James Wiseman day. They're covering this literally all day.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

I would always root for our Big East rivals except (obviously) against us. Most of them, anyway. Could not/would not ever root for 'cuse or Louisville.

Yup. Those 2 were my "never in a million years" teams

 

[StunningSteve]

 

[Dove]

Primadonna or what?

 

[UConnSwag11]

Live coverage: Memphis' James Wiseman makes college basketball choice

 

[superjohn]

I never rooted for Syracuse under any circumstances. If they played Duke I rooted for Duke. Gross but true.

They weren't exactly easy to root for but I was pulling for them to win it all. Aren't you from up that way?