The Athletic: KO Article

[Paesano]

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.

Nice try but we aren't Gonzaga when Few got there and we are in a better conference. Take Few, circa 11 years ago, and put him in charge of this program, today, and it doesn't take him 11 years to get to the final four. Not even close. Take Few 17 years ago and give him the program Calhoun handed Ollie and we would look a lot better right now. But you guys keep fighting the good fight. Your arguments are flawed but, hey, you are able to inject noise into the discussion so maybe you can convince a few people that it will just take Ollie another 11 years and we will be back in the final four. Gotta give you, stain and danny credit for being persistent.

 

[Paesano]

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

Gonzaga is A LOT better than us and they are in a worse conference. Yeah, who wants THAT!?!?

 

[August_West]

Nice try but we aren't Gonzaga when Few got there and we are in a better conference. Take Few, circa 11 years ago, and put him in charge of this program, today, and it doesn't take him 11 years to get to the final four. Not even close. Take Few 17 years ago and give him the program Calhoun handed Ollie and we would look a lot better right now. But you guys keep fighting the good fight. Your arguments are flawed but, hey, you are able to inject noise into the discussion so maybe you can convince a few people that it will just take Ollie another 11 years and we will be back in the final four. Gotta give you, stain and danny credit for being persistent.

You would never stand for fews recruiting classes.
.and few took over the year after monson had them in elite 8

 

[August_West]

Gonzaga is A LOT better than us and they are in a worse conference. Yeah, who wants THAT!?!?

17 years

 

[lange10]

Call me naive but I don't think our struggles are due to realignment as much as everyone else. If we were in NBE or P5 conference, the only difference I think you'd see is a spike in revenue and attendance due to marquee opponents. Six years in with Ollie and the product on the floor is what it is. I have no reason to believe the product on the floor would look any better in a better conference.

 

[UConnNick]

You are right. But the UConn women won championships from both a bad and a good conference. The key is coaching. Everything else is an excuse and noise.

True. Geno is a transcendent college BB coach, men's or women's. Few is a great college BB coach, but he has benefited from being in a garbage conference for his entire career. That's not to say he hasn't had lots of success against Top 25 competition outside of his garbage conference, but he still hasn't won the big prize.

 

[mauconnfan]

You are right. But the UConn women won championships from both a bad and a good conference. The key is coaching. Everything else is an excuse and noise.

Paesano completely stupid comparison please say you didn't compare Geno and the womens game, conference, recruiting and winning to the mens? I mean he's BY FAR the best coach in the womens game and #2 isn't even on the radar. He could play in America East and do the same damn thing. Try to keep your negativity at least apples-to-apples.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

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

To be clear; are you claiming that we were considered a blue blood prior to 1999?

 

[Paesano]

17 years

Gonzaga's distant past is better than our present. Try to make accurate comparisons. Oh, wait, those make Ollie look bad and you don't want that. Nevermind...

 

[Paesano]

Paesano completely stupid comparison please say you didn't compare Geno and the womens game, conference, recruiting and winning to the mens? I mean he's BY FAR the best coach in the womens game and #2 isn't even on the radar. He could play in America East and do the same damn thing. Try to keep your negativity at least apples-to-apples.

I didn't bring the women's team into the discussion. And you made the same point I did. A great coach can win from any conference.

 

[August_West]

Gonzaga's distant past is better than our present. Try to make accurate comparisons. Oh, wait, those make Ollie look bad and you don't want that. Nevermind...

Unhinged

 

[superjohn]

To be clear; are you claiming that we were considered a blue blood prior to 1999?

No, we were blue blood status to many when Calhoun turned the program over.

 

[UConnNick]

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.

Gee, athletic dept. insiders are blaming the AAC for our recruiting woes? What a surprise! In other words, folks who may likely be apologists for our recent recruiting losses and struggles want to blame the conference instead of Ollie?

How convenient, and also how irrelevant. If traditional football schools like SMU, Houston and UCF have been able to figure out a way to upgrade their BB programs and recruiting SINCE joining the AAC, then it can be done. Our pedigree and facilities as compared with other AAC schools are second to none. A bunch of naysayers in the UCONN athletic dept. whining and crying about how they can't get it done is a complete joke. Get out there and do the work. Quit whining about why you can't.

 

[mauconnfan]

I didn't bring the women's team into the discussion. And you made the same point I did. A great coach can win from any conference.

A great coach in mens isn't the same with a great coach in the womens - try to stay with me on that.

 

[UConnNick]

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.

First, who cares about academics anymore? Second, thinking that the NBE is somehow academically superior to the AAC is mostly hogwash anyway. Ignoring for a moment the commuter schools, and even the NBE has at least one of those (St. John's), The AAC has at least three or more schools that are academically superior to ANY schools in the NBE. Tulane, SMU, Tulsa and UCONN are all outstanding academically. Tulane is among the best academic schools in the country. The NBE has Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, and then who? The rest of the schools in that conference are not academic juggernauts. This whole thing is about $$$ and lots of it. Academics got left behind some time ago. Heck, even the NCAA won't sanction schools for offering fake classes, and we're talking about a public university which I believe ranked in the top 10 nationally or close to it in the USN&WR rankings. Nobody gives a damn about academics anymore, even if they claim they do. If it mattered, we'd be sitting in the ACC right now, not Hookers & Blow U.

 

[intlzncster]

That's a good post

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

What say you?

To a degree. They both value education highly, obviously, but the difference in resources is just too great to make them peers. I'm not saying who's a 'better' school. Just that UCONN's focus is, and should be, grander than the smaller private institutions.

 

[superjohn]

First, who cares about academics anymore? Second, thinking that the NBE is somehow academically superior to the AAC is mostly hogwash anyway. Ignoring for a moment the commuter schools, and even the NBE has at least one of those (St. John's), The AAC has at least three or more schools that are academically superior to ANY schools in the NBE. Tulane, SMU, Tulsa and UCONN are all outstanding academically. Tulane is among the best academic schools in the country. The NBE has Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, and then who? The rest of the schools in that conference are not academic juggernauts. This whole thing is about $$$ and lots of it. Academics got left behind some time ago. Heck, even the NCAA won't sanction schools for offering fake classes, and we're talking about a public university which I believe ranked in the top 10 nationally or close to it in the USN&WR rankings. Nobody gives a damn about academics anymore, even if they claim they do. If it mattered, we'd be sitting in the ACC right now, not Hookers & Blow U.

I could also care less about academics but who are the three or more AAC schools who are academically superior to Georgetown?

 

[FfldCntyFan]

No, we were blue blood status to many when Calhoun turned the program over.

Yes, that is true.

I did quite a bit of business travelling during the 1990's and it was amazing how many outside of the northeast believed (in large part due to Majerus, who enjoyed knocking us) we were an overrated program (until we did win it all).

 

[DAC17]

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.

As I understand it, the TV deal comes to pass in 2021. Do most people think we can continue to run big losses in the sports programs, given the disastrous state budget deficit, until 2022??

 

[Scrutineer]

First, who cares about academics anymore? Second, thinking that the NBE is somehow academically superior to the AAC is mostly hogwash anyway. Ignoring for a moment the commuter schools, and even the NBE has at least one of those (St. John's), The AAC has at least three or more schools that are academically superior to ANY schools in the NBE. Tulane, SMU, Tulsa and UCONN are all outstanding academically. Tulane is among the best academic schools in the country. The NBE has Georgetown, Villanova, Providence, and then who? The rest of the schools in that conference are not academic juggernauts. This whole thing is about $$$ and lots of it. Academics got left behind some time ago. Heck, even the NCAA won't sanction schools for offering fake classes, and we're talking about a public university which I believe ranked in the top 10 nationally or close to it in the USN&WR rankings. Nobody gives a damn about academics anymore, even if they claim they do. If it mattered, we'd be sitting in the ACC right now, not Hookers & Blow U.

Please think twice about including Providence in any list of fine academic institutions. They are like a commuter school and always have been.

 

[Waquoit]

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?

I don't have to. I lived it. Before '99, UConn held the record for most NCAA appearances without a FF. And I don't know how many wins Few had before his FF, was it more than JC before '99?

 

[Hoophound]

PC is/was a good school. Most people over 3o would consider PC a tier below BC, but still a very good school.

The AAC has good schools with the exception of ECU, Houston and Memphis. SMU, UConn, Tulane, Tulsa and Navy are top notch. USF, UCF, Cincy and Temple are considered pretty good these days. In fact, UCF and USF are way harder to get into these days than most notherners probably think. With the growth in Florida, state schools have become very competitive.

 

[superjohn]

Please think twice about including Providence in any list of fine academic institutions. They are like a commuter school and always have been.

PC is a pretty good school, not amazing but it's certainly not a commuter school.

 

[Paesano]

I don't have to. I lived it. Before '99, UConn held the record for most NCAA appearances without a FF. And I don't know how many wins Few had before his FF, was it more than JC before '99?

You recall correctly. Yes, many of us wondered if we would ever get to the final four. But here is the thing, we were always only a year away, it seemed. Calhoun screwed up at times and we did have the occasional bad season but he always bounced back and it never felt like an out of control downward spiral. Calhoun may have been criticized and doubted but he never completely lost the majority of the fans. People still went to games in droves because, even at our worst, our most pessimistic fans had hope. And the teams were still fun to watch. We bounced back from bad games just like we bounced back from bad years. It never got this dark.

 

[Javjudah]

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.

True. Geno is a transcendent college BB coach, men's or women's. Few is a great college BB coach, but he has benefited from being in a garbage conference for his entire career. That's not to say he hasn't had lots of success against Top 25 competition outside of his garbage conference, but he still hasn't won the big prize.

what do you think happens when Geno leaves?