Sell Me On Cavanaugh

[huskymedic]

FWIW, wasn't Cavanaugh hired when UConn was still a member of the Big East conference with still great hoops, fairly decent football, and significantly higher revenues? Perhaps not, but the BE didn't dissolve until sometime in 2013. It's a SWAG on my part, but somehow I'm challenged to believe Manuel and Hearst flat out lied regarding UConn's then plans for facilities' improvements and construction. However, the current facilities absolutely are subpar by HE standards and a significant recruiting challenge versus HE and other competitors.

Cavanaugh was hired beginning of May in 2013 - after the Big East split become public...

 

[mac2351]

I agree with a lot of this, but to say they didn't replace the output of a top 20 draft pick is ridiculous.

Yeah. No crap they didn't. Its not exactly easy.

I am not saying they needed to replace him with another first round pick.

It was necessary to bring a couple players who could give the team production from the top two lines.

 

[zls44]

I don't think UConn lied to Cav, per se- remember, Warde was the guy in charge of hockey at Michigan. I believe he earnestly intended to push the program and get a facility. Does Dave Benedict feel the same way about hockey and its future? I'm not sure.

 

[ct06111]

I don't think UConn lied to Cav, per se- remember, Warde was the guy in charge of hockey at Michigan. I believe he earnestly intended to push the program and get a facility. Does Dave Benedict feel the same way about hockey and its future? I'm not sure.

Early on, he said he was looking forward to a "match" , so I'm suspect. I now semantics, but it's not a soccer game.

Used to warde at nearly every game.

Maybe seen Benedict once or twice
More Goetz. I think she is more of a hockey fan than him IMO.

Obviously soccer, baseball, and softball are taking precedent.

Lately, it does seem like there is more action on an arena

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Cavanaugh was hired beginning of May in 2013 - after the Big East split become public...

Knew it was around the same general time, but still find suggestions of any lies challenging to believe. Thanks for the timing insight.

 

[zls44]

More Goetz. I think she is more of a hockey fan than him IMO.

Minnesota background, right? That's arguably the biggest sport at UM, so she'd be well aware of the sport's potential.

 

[ct06111]

Minnesota background, right? That's arguably the biggest sport at UM, so she'd be well aware of the sport's potential.

AD David Benedict was an assistant AD there too, right?

At least for a little while?

I think that was a main or at least one reason to bring her in. They worked together.

 

[Adios]

Again this team competes to superior talent. We are slowly getting better. Basketball and football you see a pattern of trouble. Hockey will get better with time and facilities. Trust the process.

Slowly getting better? What's our record vs Sacred Heart?

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Minnesota background, right? That's arguably the biggest sport at UM, so she'd be well aware of the sport's potential.

Football generates more dollars at The U, but anyone would need to be deaf, dump & blind or straight-line dead not to know hockey's massive prominence! As you correctly convey, Goetz may know just a wee bit more about hockey than some may unknowingly perceive.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Where do our recruiting rankings in the HE usually run? Are we toward the bottom every year?
Or Is he recruiting quality classes and not coaching them up?

We probably have the worst on-campus facilities in HE. Recruiting will be an issue until we solve the facilities problem. In HE, BU and BC have the pick of the litter and that probably will never change. The goal is to be able to crack the 2nd tier, with UMass Lowell, PC, and NU. Once UConn gets decent on campus facilities there is no reason why they can't be the top college program in Connecticut and crack the 2nd tier of Hockey East.

 

[gtcam]

Hockey East was a huge and only move that made sense for UConn
Unfortunately it means an all out effort to upgrade facilities, the team and the coach
Cav was the best and most logical choice - he knows HE and what is needed
Will he get the facility? - he has to BUT not within the time span he most likely would like - the curtained off Civic Center sucks - need an on campus facility that will bring the student body in.
His recruiting class coming in (and we hope they all do get here) is very impressive
Losing your best offensive player who was/is a top 20 talent is hard to replace.
He deserves the chance to work through the nest few years but the administration needs to move on with facility upgrades ASAP
There is a lot of buzz in hockey circles about UConn hockey and many "in the know" seem to feel that it will end up well and while I question some of his coaching moves and his style at times, I think it needs to be Cav to continue the march forward.
The program needs the facility and the support (the second is easier than the first)

 

[husky8273]

Curious - what quirk in the HE schedule has us with 15 conference games played, UMass with 8, UNH and Maine with 10??

 

[dbmill]

Curious - what quirk in the HE schedule has us with 15 conference games played, UMass with 8, UNH and Maine with 10??

It's the same quirk in the schedule that has UConn playing only 5 games in February. Probably was at least partly due to XL Center availability, although I can't say for certain. For whatever reason UConn's schedule was very front loaded this time around, with only 12 games in the last two months of the season.

 

[FDNY99]

It's the same quirk in the schedule that has UConn playing only 5 games in February. Probably was at least partly due to XL Center availability, although I can't say for certain. For whatever reason UConn's schedule was very front loaded this time around, with only 12 games in the last two months of the season.

Uconn hockey is 4th up for dates after Wolfpack and Uconn Mbb/Wbb.

 

[Sea Goat]

Admittedly it is hard to do. Cavanaugh came from one of the Cadillac HE programs. Those guys had the luxury of "complete packages" seeking them out rather than the other way around. I am not sure Cavanaugh has the the right attitude to develop less then stellar recruits. Look at what JC did with hoops. He took some second rate recruits and molded them into solid, competitive and championship players. Cavanaugh has yet to show me that he can improve a "diamond in the rough" like JC did with hoops. I think he is fundamentally sound and is a pretty good recruiter. But, taking a three star kid and making him a HE star hasn't happened yet. One thing is absolutely necessary though - he has to toughen up the back line. Our defense is soft. I don't see any opposition forwards looking over theirs shoulders when going into the corners. We need some bangers and playmakers back there and we don't have them.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Admittedly it is hard to do. Cavanaugh came from one of the Cadillac HE programs. Those guys had the luxury of "complete packages" seeking them out rather than the other way around. I am not sure Cavanaugh has the the right attitude to develop less then stellar recruits. Look at what JC did with hoops. He took some second rate recruits and molded them into solid, competitive and championship players. Cavanaugh has yet to show me that he can improve a "diamond in the rough" like JC did with hoops. I think he is fundamentally sound and is a pretty good recruiter. But, taking a three star kid and making him a HE star hasn't happened yet. One thing is absolutely necessary though - he has to toughen up the back line. Our defense is soft. I don't see any opposition forwards looking over theirs shoulders when going into the corners. We need some bangers and playmakers back there and we don't have them.

I don't know if you really can have "bangers" in the modern day Hockey East. Any hit that makes a loud noise, or rattles the glass seems to get called as some form of penalty. The refereeing in HE is really, really, bad. What they need to do is go back to 2 linesmen and 1 ref in all hockey. There is no need what so ever for 2 refs.

 

[RSTuthill]

Plus Bruce Marshall (RIP) was spectacularly bad as a coach and his teams were always among the bottom 5 in all of Division 1. And Cavanaugh has the worst facilities in the entire conference.

Excuse me please? Marshall had zero rides to work with. Zero. And you expected something better in light of that fact? I am simply not gonna bash Cav, but bashing Marshall to make Cav look better is out of line.

 

[zls44]

Marshall had zero rides to work with. Zero.

So did most of the D3/MAAC/AHA teams who regularly shoved his teams into their own net during his tenure.

 

[RSTuthill]

So did most of the D3/MAAC/AHA teams who regularly shoved his teams into their own net during his tenure.

Get out your media guide if you have one. You will change your tune. Were you ever there in those days? Because I was and I can tell you that you are way off the mark. Btw, UConn was never D3. They played a D3 schedule adhering to both D3 and D1 rules which disadvantaged them. The conference was ECAC East, which was, with the ECAC West, at the top level of D3. Marshall's two predecessors, John Chapman and Ben Kirtland, back to 1960, had half a dozen winning seasons in twenty eight. In his first five seasons Marshall's teams went 6-21, 15-11-1, 18-7-2, 22-4-2 (RS champions, runner up in the tournament), and 19-6-2. In the second year of the MAAC they won the MAAC championship. The only other team that had zero rides in the MAAC was HC. And that was the situation almost all the way through their AHA days. Everyone else had four and later more as the limit was increased. Furthermore, UConn was prohibited by Federal law at the time from giving need based aid to foreign students. That included Canadians. The rosters in those days were almost entirely New England preps and their freshmen were typically 18 or 19 years old. Are you getting the picture?

 

[zls44]

Get out your media guide if you have one. You will change your tune. Were you ever there in those days? Because I was and I can tell you that you are way off the mark. Btw, UConn was never D3. They played a D3 schedule adhering to both D3 and D1 rules which disadvantaged them. The conference was ECAC East, which was, with the ECAC West, at the top level of D3. Marshall's two predecessors, John Chapman and Ben Kirtland, back to 1960, had half a dozen winning seasons in twenty eight. In his first five seasons Marshall's teams went 6-21, 15-11-1, 18-7-2, 22-4-2 (RS champions, runner up in the tournament), and 19-6-2. In the second year of the MAAC they won the MAAC championship. The only other team that had zero rides in the MAAC was HC. And that was the situation almost all the way through their AHA days. Everyone else had four and later more as the limit was increased. Furthermore, UConn was prohibited by Federal law at the time from giving need based aid to foreign students. That included Canadians. The rosters in those days were almost entirely New England preps and their freshmen were typically 18 or 19 years old. Are you getting the picture?

You predate my following of the program (starting when they went D-1), but if you think he was in any way actually good as a coach, you're sorely mistaken. HC had the same amount of scholarships- and was miles better. Every year. Do you really think AIC and Bentley fractioning a mighty 4 scholarships was a major advantage over UConn? It was not a major advantage. It was an excuse.

There was no reason 0-scholarship UConn should have ever been THAT bad. I feel bad saying this stuff given the sad off-the-ice realities of his later life, but the evidence was overwhelming.

He was an awful, awful coach.

 

[zls44]

In his first five seasons Marshall's teams went 6-21, 15-11-1, 18-7-2, 22-4-2 (RS champions, runner up in the tournament), and 19-6-2. In the second year of the MAAC they won the MAAC championship.

Yes, and in his final THIRTEEN SEASONS, they were regularly one of the VERY WORST TEAMS IN DIVISION I!

 

[RSTuthill]

Yes, and in his final THIRTEEN SEASONS, they were regularly one of the VERY WORST TEAMS IN DIVISION I!

Yup, and of course you know that by the end of those thirteen seasons the AHC scho0larship limit was at 11 or 12 with a plan in place to continue to ramp up to 18. Try competing as a state university against those number with zero rides. Please also note that a couple years after the MAAC was formed, UConn started trying to add OOC games from the four major conferences, virtually all of them away. Subtract those losses due to program building. And knock out the Franklin Pierce year as he was restarting a program.

I really do not think you have a clue about what it takes to be competitive at a large state university when you are basically restricted to recruiting prep school graduates against scholarship schools or a more tony Holy Cross with its higher profile academics and much more selective admission standards. And if you know so much, you should also know that HC starting doing something similar to what Union was doing. How do you think Union won a national championship with no scholarships??? Yeah right. My son went to Union. I was working in Schenectady at the time. International student loans to build community "diversity" that are routinely forgiven or have an indefinite interest free term. It was about that time that Canadian players started showing up on HC's roster too after they announced something similar. You really need to look beneath the surface before you make these kinds of statements, You clearly have no clue what was going on in those days.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

What if zls44 and RSTuthill are both partially correct, and less than willing to acknowledge their respective views? Marshall wasn't much of a coach, but obstacles to success also existed.

 

[The Viking]

Anyway back to my point when does UConn fire Cavanaugh

 

[Jarhead_1775]

I did enjoy this thread. Thanks for bumping it.