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Message: [QUOTE="uconnphil2016, post: 1598910, member: 6328"] I've got a few problems with your assessment 1) State flagship does matter. Flagships pump out the most research and get the most $ in grants, have med schools, large student bases, and storied history. BC has the history academically and athletically, but doesn't have nearly the same level of research as UConn or a medical school. Sure, there are hugely successful athletic programs that you mentioned who defy the criteria, but they're an aberration. 2) Football attendance, if adjusted to consider who you guys play on a weekly basis compared to us, is objectively embarrassing--any logical BC fan is willing to admit that. BC is known for having a lukewarm fan base. TV ratings are also obviously associated with conference affiliation and opponent--of course your TV ratings will trump ours when we've got a 12:00 slot on CBS Sports against UCF and you're playing FSU on a Friday night. On an equal playing field, it's hard to believe that BC would garner more interest on television over UConn. Also, your assertion that people in northern New England states give a **** about BC sports, or even people in Boston for that matter, is just as absurd as our argument that we're NYC's team (as a UConn fan, no one in NYC cares about us--I'll definitely concede that). BC's market is undoubtedly an advantage over UConn's, and if it were an advantage, it would be marginal. Our student and alumni base is much larger and we have the advantage of being the premier athletic program in our state, whereas you guys are behind a multitude of professional teams and are home to folks who are attending literally hundreds of colleges within Boston, thus not caring about BC athletics. 3) You mention that BC football is better than UConn, UConn basketball is better than BC, and BC is better in olympic sports (not sure where you derive that from). Let's look at this holistically. By what margin is BC football better than UConn? You can point to Doug Flutie and the Orange Bowl all you want, but BC's history as a football team is pretty pedestrian apart from Flutie and Matt Ryan. UConn is no football powerhouse--I'm not arguing that. However, your advantage there is marginal and rooted mostly in the fact that your program has the benefit of having competed at the FBS level for longer than we have. As for basketball, the advantage is clearly anything but marginal. Your basketball team is one of the worst p5 programs in decades and shows no signs of improving any time soon. We, on the other hand, are one of the ten best basketball programs in the country, and are obviously the best women's program. As for olympic sports, I won't pretend to know anything about BC's programs, but we've had a heck of a run in baseball developing MLB talent, have a great soccer team and field hockey is dominant. So, again, if we look at things holistically, rather than you being like, "oh, well we've got the advantage in 2 of 3 categories so advantage BC!" it's smarter to consider how wide the discrepancy is between the programs in each sport, something that you purposefully ignore in order to avoid having to confront how a power conference will be so insane as to willingly take on such a poor basketball program whose other athletic programs (aside from hockey) offer nothing of any exceptional value [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach