Ngongba Cuts UCONN

[tzznandrew]

I don't think being on television matters with NBA teams

It's not about NBA teams or scouts. It's about building a brand and being known going into the league.

 

[jibsey]

With the talent in their roster let them be villains, makes it fun to see them fail(we hope). I couldn’t believe the number of posts from people here a while ago who hated other programs more than they hated Duke.

 

[auror]

Yeah, I think we're going to disagree in terms of exposure. ESPN may be in a terminal decline, it seems, but for the time being they still control the sports narratives, particularly CBB. It's where the hype comes from, and if you're only doing one year, getting that narrative I think helps.

While Fox Sports may be in as many households as ESPN, we all know there's a difference in viewership numbers just in terms of games, not getting into the rest of the talking head shows, etc.

Yes, we may disagree. To me it's less about the 11 FS1 games being equivalent to the ESPN games (we agree, they're not), and more about 8 regular broadcast TV games which are in the "primetime" of the college basketball week being so much better than being on ESPN. Like a lot of people are going to watch some B1G game on CBS in the early afternoon, then Kentucky Alabama on CBS and then UConn Nova primetime on Fox. Or UConn-Marquette before Michigan St/Michigan, both on Fox. Meanwhile Duke is lost in the shuffle playing on ESPN2 both days.

The talking heads and podcasts feature those Sat/Sun afternoon network games as the games they pick against the spread, the games they preview on the Friday episodes/articles, etc., because a lot of those hype guys work for those networks (CBS-Parrish/Norlander and Fox-Fanta) and the performance of those weekend afternoon games is important to the networks. ESPN isn't the biggest in the game in college basketball media anymore. Who is the biggest college basketball personality for ESPN? Bilas? He's on the way down. Greenberg? Love that he's a Hurley guy but who cares.

 

[LStudfellow]

Great is quite the stretch. We have used it to fill in holes. But this will be quite the jump. Hurley has shown the ability to adapt and I expect him to do the same here.

"Great" is quite the stretch? Last years' transfers played an integral role in us winning the National Championship.

Therefore, no other team in the country did better in the transfer portal than Danny Hurley in the 2022 off season. NO ONE.

So yeah... I consider that GREAT, since you can not get any better than that. And unlike so many others, I use hyperbolic terms like "great" much more judiciously.

Danny gets An A+ for his use of the transfer portal. Again, they helped us win the title. Period. End of story. That is the definition of great in my book.

 

[Gurleyman]

Same way Kentucky has the last 10 years.

Hey. You need to give Duke some credit too! Zion, Barrett and Reddish were 3 of the top 4 recruits in the country and hyped as part of the greatest class ever. That group was life and death with Tacko Fall’s UCF in the second round, needed a miracle to survive, and came up short of the FF to Michigan State.

Zion, Tatum and Kyrie won 6 NCAA games - alas they played in different seasons. Ingram also flamed out early. Banchero reached the FF but lost to an 8 seed.

in fairness, the Jahlil Okafor team did break the mold in 2015 - mostly since Jones and Allen had clutch performances that were outliers (for KY, Anthony Davis shot 1-10 in the championship while Doron Lamb was clutch)