The Athletic: KO Article

[Guapo]

Villanova is just Xavier with a slightly better coach. In a few years they will fall again. It’s still surrendering the dream that UConn can be considered a major public university alongside our peers. Joining up with small, private schools does great damage to our reputation in other ways.

This isn’t just about sports. This is about UConn looking at Michigan, Virginia, UNC, Penn State and Wisconsin and saying “We are with you. We are like you”. No other New England public can do that. We have a chance and we have to see it through. That’s what the move to D1 football was all about.

I agree with you. This isn't about sports.

But I'd argue that a protracted stay in the AAC would do more damage to our academic brand than joining the Big East would.

 

[HuskyHawk]

8893 is right on. If I'm a three to borderline four star from anywhere in the country and not really excited about the bottom dweller P5's pursuing me and I'm being recruited by UConn, Houston and UCF. I'm going w/ Houston or UCF. The UConn name in the eyes of kids is not that alluring. This is due to having too few playmakers, questionable strategy, the AAC and a lack of recent success in the last couple of years. So, if it's gotta to be the AAC for the above hypothetical recruit, I'm going to a school in an attractive location. Storrs or Orlando? It's a no-brainer to most recruits in this scenario.

Dude, we swept UCF last year with half a roster. That argument is nonsense. We won a national championship 3 years ago. Houston never has and hasn't been to final four since before these kids were born. UCF has, quite literally, never done anything at all in the sport of basketball, except suck at it. We went to the tournament two years ago. Houston and UCF didn't. UConn still has a better name and more allure than any other school in the league, and it isn't close. There are other things that are to blame here, things that would not be fixed by being in the Big East.

 

[Waquoit]

Dude, we swept UCF last year with half a roster.

But that half included Brimah. Tacko couldn't do squat against him.

 

[UConnDan97]

Nice mental gymnastics. If a team, from a better conference, does better than UConn, it is because they are in a better conference. If a team, from a worse conference, does better it is because they are in a worse conference. Brilliant!!!

So did Gonzaga's weak conference get them all the way to the national championship game last year or was that coaching?

I think you might suffer from some sort of disorder, so I'll try not to pick on you.

First, I made the comment in my post that I think Mark Few is a very good coach.
Second, if you think that having 25+ wins on your record doesn't foster being well thought of, then it's not my mental gymnastics you need to worry about...

 

[superjohn]

8893 is right on. If I'm a three to borderline four star from anywhere in the country and not really excited about the bottom dweller P5's pursuing me and I'm being recruited by UConn, Houston and UCF. I'm going w/ Houston or UCF. The UConn name in the eyes of kids is not that alluring. This is due to having too few playmakers, questionable strategy, the AAC and a lack of recent success in the last couple of years. So, if it's gotta to be the AAC for the above hypothetical recruit, I'm going to a school in an attractive location. Storrs or Orlando? It's a no-brainer to most recruits in this scenario.

Houston hasn't been alluring to recruits since Guy Lewis and UCF has never been alluring to anyone. Those schools don't get anyone for hoops.

 

[8893]

Dude, we swept UCF last year with half a roster. That argument is nonsense. We won a national championship 3 years ago. Houston never has and hasn't been to final four since before these kids were born. UCF has, quite literally, never done anything at all in the sport of basketball, except suck at it. We went to the tournament two years ago. Houston and UCF didn't. UConn still has a better name and more allure than any other school in the league, and it isn't close. There are other things that are to blame here, things that would not be fixed by being in the Big East.

He's talking about the geography much more than the prestige of the program. I think someone else made the point that we're not necessarily losing recruits to these other AAC schools, because we generally haven't been competing for the same players; but I think it's just a matter of "fit," no matter how you define it. My logical mind still says the AAC is a better place for us right now, and agree with you that we fit best with a P5 conference like the Big Ten and that that should remain the long term goal. I think the question is becoming how long is that long term, and whether we will be so irreparably damaged in the meantime that we might as well give up that pipe dream and salvage at least our basketball legacy by trying to get into the NBE, apparently for fan nostalgia and fannies in the seats if little else.

All of which is to basically confirm what the article says and what we all know: we're stuck.

 

[Mots010]

Bottom line is our recruiting is better than the rest of the AAC by a good margin, with terrible results since 2014. Teams with less 'talent' have been finishing ahead of us every year. The AAC is a problem, but near term, coaching is our biggest problem. Now I'm definitely worried what impact the AAC will have on our coaching search.

 

[superjohn]

Bottom line is our recruiting is better than the rest of the AAC by a good margin, with terrible results since 2014. Teams with less 'talent' have been finishing ahead of us every year. The AAC is a problem, but near term, coaching is our biggest problem. Now I'm definitely worried what impact the AAC will have on our coaching search.

Exactly. I still think we can get someone very good. The longer we mess around it will no longer be the case.

 

[UofCT]

So...if we were winning, people wouldn't be complaining about the fact that program isn't winning?

Agreed.

Now is the time to stay the course and hope, against all reason, that will get a P5 invite. If nothing happens after the end of the current TV deals for the B1G, the ACC and the Big 12, we are done and will have to adapt our program expenditures to that reality.

Until then stay the course. Oh and enjoy what we have now, because things will get worse before the stabilize.

What is worse than what this program is right now?

 

[BUConn10]

I used to be 75% stick it out in the AAC.

Then I moved to 50/50.

Now I'm 75% thinking it's best to put basketball in the NBE. Football will figure itself out, somehow, someway.

I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but that's how I feel.

Amazing to me that it took nearly 6 years for people to start realizing this.

 

[HuskiesAllDay]

Exactly. I still think we can get someone very good. The longer we mess around it will no longer be the case.

I agree. People on here act like there are no good coaches out there from smaller programs. Or that we have no shot at landing a good coach.

Which is ironic because the same people labeling others as “haters” for being realistic about ko’s performance are the ones who apparently think our program is so unappealing that we have no shot to land a decent coach. It’s pretty ridiculous.

We still can land a good coach. But the longer we wait the less appealing we become.

 

[RipCity]

Coaching is clearly a bigger issue than conference alignment. We aren’t the best team in the conference even with the highest rated recruits. It’s a problem.

 

[Guapo]

Let me ask you all this:

If you're rebuilding this program (which we have to do), which is a better foundation upon which to build?

Middling Big East team?

Or

Middling AAC team?

 

[HuskyHawk]

He's talking about the geography much more than the prestige of the program. I think someone else made the point that we're not necessarily losing recruits to these other AAC schools, because we generally haven't been competing for the same players; but I think it's just a matter of "fit," no matter how you define it. My logical mind still says the AAC is a better place for us right now, and agree with you that we fit best with a P5 conference like the Big Ten and that that should remain the long term goal. I think the question is becoming how long is that long term, and whether we will be so irreparably damaged in the meantime that we might as well give up that pipe dream and salvage at least our basketball legacy by trying to get into the NBE, apparently for fan nostalgia and fannies in the seats if little else.

All of which is to basically confirm what the article says and what we all know: we're stuck.

Yes, stuck I am on board with. What I reject is that success in this league is somehow impossible or out of reach. That's hogwash. With WSU and some other programs improving, it is not a bad league at all. The biggest problem the American has is that UConn isn't what it should be. We are letting it down much more than the other way around.

So long before we explore moving to a league without football, we need to explore any other changes around the hoops program that need to be made. You know what that is. And yet, I don't think we're quite there yet either.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Let me ask you all this:

If you're rebuilding this program (which we have to do), which is a better foundation upon which to build?

Middling Big East team?

Or

Middling AAC team?

Does that athletics department "program" play D1 football? Does it play baseball? If so, clearly the AAC.

 

[intlzncster]

Let me ask you all this:

If you're rebuilding this program (which we have to do), which is a better foundation upon which to build?

Middling Big East team?

Or

Middling AAC team?

Depends on what your goal is. Everybody has different goals it seems. High Risk/high reward, low risk/low upside.

1. If your focus is for UCONN to belong with like minded schools athletically/academically and to have the strongest athletic department possible, then you wait it out in the AAC. This might end up killing the BBall program. This is the high risk, high upside option.

2. If your main focus is to get the basketball program off life support, then you put the BB programs in NBE. I don't think the AAC would keep the football program, because, why bother? And football would die as an independent. So you are killing football, and lumping UCONN as a research institution into a group of independent Catholics. Low risk for the basketball team/ low reward for the school.

It's really that simple, irrespective of coaching.

 

[Letsgohuskies11]

Honestly, how much longer is the "UConn Brand" going to be enough to bring recruits here? Can we get away with it if everything remains the same for the next 5 years?

 

[August_West]

Nice mental gymnastics. If a team, from a better conference, does better than UConn, it is because they are in a better conference. If a team, from a worse conference, does better it is because they are in a worse conference. Brilliant!!!

So did Gonzaga's weak conference get them all the way to the national championship game last year or was that coaching?

17 years to get there.

Mark few had the most wins of any coach in tournament history without a FF berth. Could you imagine our fan base under those conditions?

Holy lolz.

 

[Confident Carl]

I reject the premise. The problem is that our men's basketball and football teams are underperforming and are both are cyclical lows. No matter what conference you are in, you need to have coaches that win. Winning begets more winning. It's that simple. If you look at the "G5", they have averaged ~ 3 teams in the AP Top 25 football and 5 teams in the AP Top 25 basketball polls over the past 4 years. If other schools are doing it, UConn should be able to as UConn is spending at the top of the G5.

I would agree that attendance is negatively impacted by the teams we are playing, but nobody is preventing the UConn home basketball schedule to be filled with old Big East rivals and attractive match ups instead of this year's Colgate, Stony Brook, BU, Columbia, Monmouth, and Coppin St.

The only way UConn is going to get a chance to move up during the next round of conference shakeups (and it will happen again) is to stay in the AAC and win at football.

Bravo!

 

[superjohn]

17 years to get there.

Mark few had the most wins of any coach in tournament history without a FF berth. Could you imagine our fan base under those conditions?

Holy lolz.

It took Calhoun 12 or 13. We were considered a blue blood by many, nowadays just making the tournament seems like an insurmountable task.

 

[August_West]

It took Calhoun 12 or 13. We were considered a blue blood by many, nowadays just making the tournament seems like an insurmountable task.

Yeah. And people were on Calhoun big time before 99. " Might not have what it takes to win a title"

 

[superjohn]

Yeah. And people were on Calhoun big time before 99. " Might not have what it takes to win a title"

What is your point? We don't make the tournament anymore.

 

[August_West]

What is your point? We don't make the tournament anymore.

Again. My point is that I laugh when people wish us to be Gonzaga. It's stupid.

 

[Guapo]

Depends on what your goal is. Everybody has different goals it seems. High Risk/high reward, low risk/low upside.

1. If your focus is for UCONN to belong with like minded schools athletically/academically and to have the strongest athletic department possible, then you wait it out in the AAC. This might end up killing the BBall program. This is the high risk, high upside option.

2. If your main focus is to get the basketball program off life support, then you put the BB programs in NBE. I don't think the AAC would keep the football program, because, why bother? And football would die as an independent. So you are killing football, and lumping UCONN as a research institution into a group of independent Catholics. Low risk for the basketball team/ low reward for the school.

It's really that simple, irrespective of coaching.

That's a good post

I'd say like minded schools include schools like Georgetown and Villanova.

What say you?

 

[jibsey]

I'm not going to pay to read the article but some thoughts.

We are not landing GREAT recruits but we are having some success. I think the biggest issue is recruiting big men that are either ready to play, or getting an assistant that actually knows wth he is doing. Issue number two is having to cobble things together after de-commits and transfers. We will have to keep bringing in lower tier players as long as kids continue to bail on us. Would moving to the Big East solve this problem? Maybe recruiting would improve a bit. I'm not sure.

If we went to the Big East tomorrow we would still be a bad basketball team. Coaching needs to improve regardless of which conference we are in. Whether that means Ollie getting his shiz together or bringing in someone else- That is a question for the end of the season IMO.

I think people need to ask themselves if the Conference is really the reason we are not playing good basketball. I think the answer is no. If we had taken advantage of winning in 2014, landed some great recruits and continued to win I don't think we would be having this conversation. People would be more content waiting out the process if we dominated this league the way we all expected we would. Would we be happier in the Big East, maybe? But we wouldn't be content. We would still be hoping for a spot in the ACC or Big 10.

I think Big East would improve attendance, but it's only a band aid. People don't want to pay to watch bad basketball. That isn't going to change if we are playing Georgetown every year, and its certainly not going to change if we are playing DePaul & St. Johns every year.

The American conference is improving in basketball. It is a slow process though. The question is if people will ever really care.

I still think UConn deserves a spot in a P5 conference. Unless we are able to work out a deal that allows football to play in the American, moving our basketball teams to the Big East is likely the end of that dream. It is not an easy decision to make and it shouldn't be made on a whim.

TL;DR - Move BBall to the Big East if we can leave football in the American, but our problems won't be solved if the team still sucks.

The question is will we recruit better out of the NBE? Not so sure. We could be middle of pack there too. Players=Success. Ain’t complicated.