Months ago when I decided to root for UConn as my personal favorite choice for Big 12 expansion part of it was for logical reasons like reputation, academics and market. But deep in my heart I knew even then that there were some other tangibles that would clearly mean less to others:
Like the fact that you have real live mascot, named Jonathan.
Back in the '60s and '70s almost all of the SWC schools had live animal mascots. It was a quintessential southwestern thing to do while all of those weird midwestern schools had esoteric colloquial people names like Sooners and Huskers and Hoosier and whatnot.
Call me crazy, but when I look at UConn, I see a kindred spirit that just happens to be 1800 miles away.