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Message: [QUOTE="UPitt, post: 653633, member: 3638"] I respect PJ as well. He just about always puts things into a good perspective and I respect him for taking a fair minded approach. I just disagree with his opinion on Oklahoma, and this may be due to our different backgrounds. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA with no NBA team and a couple weak college BB teams. For most of my region (western PA, Eastern OH, WV) it was football, football, football. Football was year round and High Schools football games would routinely draw larger crowds than college BB. I respect that much of CT/NYC/NE and Uconn fans put a larger emphasis on BB than some of the other regions. Uconn's success in BB is why I have followed Uconn and respect the newly developed rivalry between Pitt and Uconn. Maybe it is a cultural difference between myself (and Frank and a few others from the midwest) and many of the Uconn fans that live in the NE, but I honestly think that some of the Uconn posters are short sighted when sighting BB and WBB as the reasons that Uconn will and should be invited to join the P5 while downplaying the importance of football. I agree that BB has had an influence in realignment with the ACC and NBE, but in general football has trumped BB due to the structure of TV contracts (10 to 1, football to BB money). I think many Uconn posters fail to give the Uconn football program the credit it deserves with respect to realignment because they feel BB is a stronger talking point. Uconn took big strides in 10 years of BE football and has put the school in a position to receive and invite to the P5. Without these big strides, Uconn may have considered joining the NBE and dumping football in CUSA, or MAC or DII. Instead we are discussing Uconn joining the B1G and ACC which would have been a pipe dream only 10 years ago, but seems more likely than not today. I would like nothing more than to see Uconn in the ACC because I enjoy watching the BB games. I would also welcome them to the B1G as well, although I would be disappointed personally because they would lose a few rivals in the ACC. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach