So Geno really had no chance to build a successful program playing in the woeful Big East, then. He must have cheated.
Perno should have had the cupboard stocked with blue chips.
DePaul should be in the final four every few years. Big market, great RPI, good schedule...
Providence wins 20 every year - see above.
I just re-read my post and I don't see where I made the statement that "the breakup make us more attractive". Again, you take half a comment, add to it by making assumptions, and draw conclusions that are unwarranted. Same thing all the reporters are doing.
Frankly, it's intellectually lazy.
Your original comment was: "Instability in our own conference does nothing to get us into a better conference, it only makes our current home worse."
Just for the record, I could argue that instability in our own conference may very well make us more attractive to other conferences. I'm not going to do that because I don't happen to believe it, but I could easily argue the point with you. THAT was my point.
And I still don't see how getting rid of the CYO's to play with likeminded, though currently inferior athletic departments is inherently worse than staying with the CYO's. It remains to be seen how this all plays out (if we are stuck here).
There are very few black & white statements that can be made with respect to conference realignment. Up is down, black is white, etc. Nothing makes sense, and none of us knows for sure what is going on behind the scenes.
I remember people arguing with me that UConn would never, ever be successful in the Big East. Some were advocating a return to the Yankee Conference.
I think quite a few of those people are on this board.
You said, "How do you know that a BE breakup doesn't make us more attractive to other conferences? By taking us now, they can't be accused of being the one that finally killed the Big East."
I took you at your word that when you suggest something, you imply there is some veracity to it. Even when you phrase it like a question, you only do that when there is some reasonable expectation that there is truth behind it. I'm not sure what I added to it, other than saying "Why would the breakup make us more attractive?
That's opinion, and only really super-wishful thinking." Hardly damning. Certainly not intellectually lazy to suggest it. From this response, you suggest you
could say it again, but won't. Isn't that all I did? Except that you're phrasing it so that even though
you don't believe it, someone else can. Very Glen Beckian of you there.
And as to conference realignment making UConn more attractive: whether you believe it or not--and you say you don't--it is wishful, and it is opinion. Is it right? Maybe, but I doubt it.
As for Geno: really? You're going to compare women's basketball with men's basketball? The women
still routinely beat non-Top 5 opponents by 20 or 30. The gap between UConn-ND-Baylor-Stanford and the rest is pretty big (I'm not a women's basketball affectionado, so maybe there's another good team out there--but they just beat Maryland, a Top 10 team, but a bunch recently).
Geno was hired in 1985. Do you know when the NCAA women's basketball tournament started? 1982! He was around
right from the beginning. When there's no competition, and you're in from the ground floor, that's not a big deal. Who cares if you have a great schedule--except for one or two games, you
going to kill everyone anyway. It's not as big of a deal. There's no competition in WBB, whereas men's basketball thrives on it. And in Women's Basketball, UConn is UCLA back in their heyday. They can get whomever they please. Even with Calhoun, that wasn't the case. If we were cheating, and getting top rated players, we'd be fine. But we don't. And it's hard to recruit top level talent to play in a crappy conference.
Also, you make the mother-of-all leaps in straw-manning my argument. Where did I suggest that a good conference and good schedule
was all that was needed? Obviously a coach plays a great role in this. Hence, goodbye your DePaul/PC suggestions. There are other obvious flaws with your logic here, but I'll just point out that you attempted to simply strawman my point away.
Lastly, you completely side-stepped my point. The initial comment was that the only way instability helps us is if conferences ahead of us are poached, which I said as a corrective to and earlier post. You're right to suggest we don't know where things will end up: but we have to use the facts we have to judge things. And right now, we're in a conference with no immediate signs that any other conference wants to pick us up. Beating up on a bunch of crappy institutions for a short period of time, provided there is a life-raft coming, is just fine. Without it, it's the death of the program.
You cited UNLV. You could cite Memphis or UMass. They win by attracting the best players, and they did so largely by cheating. And other than a blip here or there, since their cheating coach left, they've been not very good. UNLV may turn things around with their coach, but that remains to be seen.
