UcMiami
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I've been thinking about this topic for a few weeks now, and finally did some research.
Looking around at other good to really good teams it always surprises me how poorly most teams travel. The SEC and Big 12 have been famous for years for the fact that the top teams always lose at least once on the road to a mediocre team in conference play. The Pac has had the same issue as has the ACC, and the Big 10 has generally been too mediocre to really count. The conference champions have usually been able to avoid these mistakes, but the 2nd, 3rd, (and the 4th when they are good enough) teams haven't - teams that should be solidly in the top 15-20 but lose on the road to unranked teams.
The big east at the end had a pretty good record - ND/Uconn/Louisville only lost games among them selves and prior to that Rutgers/Uconn only lost to each other. The AAC is really only a two team league at the moment, and USF is following the pattern of other leagues - losing games on the road that they just shouldn't.
I don't know why this is the case - there are very few really unique home court advantage venues - Carrier Dome, Maples, Cameron are the ones that come to mind but the losses are not associated with those venues. And Massey/Sagarin typically use a 3-4 point HC advantage which should not be enough to change outcomes in the games I am talking about. Many but not all the teams I am talking about have a habit of not playing much on the road in their OOC which might be an issue.
So anyway - I decided to look at Uconn's road record over the last 20 years - for much of that time Uconn has been pretty dominant so it isn't surprising that total losses are pretty low - but ...
Losses for seasons 1996 - 2015:
Total - 53 - 11 NCAA losses = 42
Home losses = 20
Away losses = 22
And if you limit to this century the numbers are 2001-2015:
Home = 16
Away = 16
And if you limit to our years in the wasteland - 2005-2008
Home = 8
Away = 7
To me that is an amazingly consistent record between home and away games and something I doubt any other school could match for any period of time longer than a year or two. How do Geno and CD manage to get such consistency when the team travels. Uconn is just as likely to lose a game at home as on the road over the last 15 seasons. I didn't check team rankings or points scored or other measures, but in compiling the numbers nothing really jumped out. Uconn consistently beats the teams they should beat wherever they play, and when they do lose, the surprise losses are as likely to be at home as away.
Looking around at other good to really good teams it always surprises me how poorly most teams travel. The SEC and Big 12 have been famous for years for the fact that the top teams always lose at least once on the road to a mediocre team in conference play. The Pac has had the same issue as has the ACC, and the Big 10 has generally been too mediocre to really count. The conference champions have usually been able to avoid these mistakes, but the 2nd, 3rd, (and the 4th when they are good enough) teams haven't - teams that should be solidly in the top 15-20 but lose on the road to unranked teams.
The big east at the end had a pretty good record - ND/Uconn/Louisville only lost games among them selves and prior to that Rutgers/Uconn only lost to each other. The AAC is really only a two team league at the moment, and USF is following the pattern of other leagues - losing games on the road that they just shouldn't.
I don't know why this is the case - there are very few really unique home court advantage venues - Carrier Dome, Maples, Cameron are the ones that come to mind but the losses are not associated with those venues. And Massey/Sagarin typically use a 3-4 point HC advantage which should not be enough to change outcomes in the games I am talking about. Many but not all the teams I am talking about have a habit of not playing much on the road in their OOC which might be an issue.
So anyway - I decided to look at Uconn's road record over the last 20 years - for much of that time Uconn has been pretty dominant so it isn't surprising that total losses are pretty low - but ...
Losses for seasons 1996 - 2015:
Total - 53 - 11 NCAA losses = 42
Home losses = 20
Away losses = 22
And if you limit to this century the numbers are 2001-2015:
Home = 16
Away = 16
And if you limit to our years in the wasteland - 2005-2008
Home = 8
Away = 7
To me that is an amazingly consistent record between home and away games and something I doubt any other school could match for any period of time longer than a year or two. How do Geno and CD manage to get such consistency when the team travels. Uconn is just as likely to lose a game at home as on the road over the last 15 seasons. I didn't check team rankings or points scored or other measures, but in compiling the numbers nothing really jumped out. Uconn consistently beats the teams they should beat wherever they play, and when they do lose, the surprise losses are as likely to be at home as away.
