The Big East

[Inyatkin]

The conference is falling to pieces. Its highest-achieving program over the past 20 years (us) is itching to get out the door. The conference should be desperate to keep us.
At the same time, we've been completely jobbed by the NCAA, with a tournament ban everyone from Mark Emmert on down knows is about optics, not academics.
And how does the Big East respond? By keeping us out of their postseason tournament based on equally vapid reasoning. That makes tonight's game the team's only Madison Square Garden appearance of the year.
We owe the Big East nothing.

 

[Migs]

We're playing there on Feb 26. against the Reds.
Big East is setting/following a precedent, even if it means they are willingly sacrificing ticket sales and attendance of their crown Jewell event.
We owe them nothing, and they sure as hell aren't bending over backwards to show us appreciation.
Ultimately, with the way realignment is looking, Aresco knows we are gone so he's making plans to salvage what he can with the b-ball Jesuits that will remain.

 

[willie99]

I concur, we've carried them on the national stage and they kick us to the curb. Based on some pretense we might knock a deserving school out of the tournament

Here's the reality, other schools have gotten into the tournament over the years riding our coattails. We improve their RPI, we improve their SOS, I can only surmise we've been a very big part of the difference for those Big East bubble teams that have gotten in over the years

and yes, the best team in the conference does that more so than anybody else

 

[Inyatkin]

We're playing there on Feb 26. against the Reds.
Big East is setting/following a precedent, even if it means they are willingly sacrificing ticket sales and attendance of their crown Jewell event.
We owe them nothing, and they sure as hell aren't bending over backwards to show us appreciation.
Ultimately, with the way realignment is looking, Aresco knows we are gone so he's making plans to salvage what he can with the b-ball Jesuits that will remain.

My mistake. Forgot SJU.

 

[MCNPA]

1) the Huskies owe the Big East everything. Without the Big East, "big time" Uconn basketball and football never would have happened.

2) even if the Big East decided to let Uconn slide and play in the post-season, do you think it would make an iota of a difference on whether Uconn bolted and screwed the Big East just like other schools have if given the opportunity?

I've always been told to remember where I came from. It was sage advice.

 

[ctchamps]

It was a mutually beneficial relationship in which both parties came out ahead.

The saddest thing about not playing in the BE tournament this season is that the BE will forever be different after this season. Of course hypothetically if UConn were in the tournament it could be a tty experience if they didn't do well.

 

[upstater]

I'd be lying if I said the BE ban hadn't popped up in my resentful mind recently. Really, they should reverse the ban at this point. No use rewarding all the schools flying out the door at UConn's expense.

 

[upstater]

1) the Huskies owe the Big East everything. Without the Big East, "big time" Uconn basketball and football never would have happened.

2) even if the Big East decided to let Uconn slide and play in the post-season, do you think it would make an iota of a difference on whether Uconn bolted and screwed the Big East just like other schools have if given the opportunity?

I've always been told to remember where I came from. It was sage advice.

Everything?

The basketball team strapped the BE on its back and carried it for 15 years while no one else was doing a damned thing.

 

[ctchamps]

I'd be lying if I said the BE ban hadn't popped up in my resentful mind recently. Really, they should reverse the ban at this point. No use rewarding all the schools flying out the door at UConn's expense.

Probably because UConn could be one of those schools. Maybe they reverse it tournament time and UConn is till in the BE conference!

 

[CL82]

My mistake. Forgot SJU.

Well that happens a lot. Didn't they used to have a baskeball team?

 

[ctchamps]

Well that happens a lot. Didn't they used to have a baskeball team?

And if we remain in this conference hopefully it becomes relevant again.

 

[CL82]

And if we remain in this conference hopefully it becomes relevant again.

Ouch. The idea that our future is now linked with a motley collection of has beens and wanna be's is depressing, accurate, but depressing nonetheless.

 

[ctchamps]

Ouch. The idea that our future is now linked with a motley collection of has beens and wanna be's is depressing, accurate, but depressing nonetheless.

And just as depressing is that we leave, join up with former BE teams like BCU, Pitt and Cuse and all four schools become Duke's and UNC's b*tches in bb and FSU's b*tches in football. No scenario, other than waking up tomorrow and learn that all of this was just a dream, could please me.

Ok there is one. UConn gets an invite to the B!G, the ACC loses FSU and Clemson to B12, the B!G gets Virginia, and UNC and the ACC breaks up leaving BCU, Pitt, Cuse and ND to scramble. I hold nothing against Ville. They had no options. The other four did.

 

[UConnDan97]

I really hope that the Big East somehow has a change of heart and reverses the BE Tourney ban on us. All they have to do WHEN we win it is just to put an asterisk on our name and let the runner up take the Big East auto bid. I'm not sure, but I don't think that the NCAA would have a problem with that...

 

[CL82]

I really hope that the Big East somehow has a change of heart and reverses the BE Tourney ban on us. All they have to do WHEN we win it is just to put an asterisk on our name and let the runner up take the Big East auto bid. I'm not sure, but I don't think that the NCAA would have a problem with that...

Agree hopefully WM and SH are working on this.

 

[ctchamps]

Agree hopefully WM and SH are working on this.

Hopefully they're not because they are working on getting the papers in order for the B!G or ACC!

 

[UConnDan97]

Hopefully they're not because they are working on getting the papers in order for the B!G or ACC!

Hopefully they are at least minimally talented enough to accomplish both (the Big East thing only involves a couple of letters drafted up!)...

 

[ctchamps]

Hopefully they are at least minimally talented enough to accomplish both (the Big East thing only involves a couple of letters drafted up!)...

It would be bad taste to know UConn is leaving and put the play on the BE. But taste has gone south with the Pitt handling of BE negotiations with ESPN, voting against it, even as they had their trucks packed for the move to the ACC!

 

[UConnDan97]

It would be bad taste to know UConn is leaving and put the play on the BE. But taste has gone south with the Pitt handling of BE negotiations with ESPN, voting against it, even as they had their trucks packed for the move to the ACC!

I disagree. If it were truly in bad taste, then Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Louisville should all remove themselves from the tournament. Our desire to leave certainly cannot be in poorer taste than those who have actually secured plans to leave, right?

 

[Poe]

I disagree. If it were truly in bad taste, then Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Louisville should all remove themselves from the tournament. Our desire to leave certainly cannot be in poorer taste than those who have actually secured plans to leave, right?

Agreed, those schools should be banned from the Big East tourney this year. Better yet, the Big East should wait until the day before the tourney starts and then ban them. F-em.

 

[AtlHusky]

I really hope that the Big East somehow has a change of heart and reverses the BE Tourney ban on us. All they have to do WHEN we win it is just to put an asterisk on our name and let the runner up take the Big East auto bid. I'm not sure, but I don't think that the NCAA would have a problem with that...

Even if we were allowed in and happened to win it, there's a 98.5% chance that the runner-up would already be in a position to secure an at-large bid. The auto-bid the BE is awarded every year does not +1 to the list of BE teams that make the NCAA tourney each year.

 

[UConnDan97]

Even if we were allowed in and happened to win it, there's a 98.5% chance that the runner-up would already be in a position to secure an at-large bid. The auto-bid the BE is awarded every year does not +1 to the list of BE teams that make the NCAA tourney each year.

Even more reason to let us play...

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

I used to be a fan of the Big East.

Now I couldn't care less if every fan of every other Big Least team rots in hell forever.

:::spits:::.

 

[ctchamps]

I disagree. If it were truly in bad taste, then Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Louisville should all remove themselves from the tournament. Our desire to leave certainly cannot be in poorer taste than those who have actually secured plans to leave, right?

You can only guess how much I hate all the circumstances that led to UConn's predicament and how p*ssed I am over the whole thing. JC was not popular with lots of fans, press, other coaches, and the NCAA. But he hardly did compared to many other programs that were shoveling the stuff at the NCAA. He got caught in the the personal vendettas of several people including Mark Emmert and Jeff Hathaway.

Two years ago he was in the crosshairs of a Yahoo writer who wanted to neutralize the only impediment to an NC for KU because that writer was in the payroll of the squid. So the Miles thing comes out just before tournament time.

And then the *sshole Hathaway who believed being an AD was about being in control of his own personal fiefdom and felt that to accomplish this he had to take down uppity and powerful people who could hurt him. So he creates media disasters for the football and bb programs to hurt the two coaches and when the Nate Miles affair went to the NCAA he said exactly the perfect things to make it look like JC was involved in the whole affair whereas most of us know that JC would have nothing to do with Nochimson after he stole from Rip.

And that same *sshole didn't try to help the football and bb coach when they asked for a level playing field with the other schools regarding academics. Why would JH accommodate the guys he was trying to bring down. And then Emmert, who had run ins with JC made sure to get his pound of flesh by making the APR retroactive.

So the APR thing was unfair right from the beginning. And if any of you want to be angry at all the players involved in this whole nightmarish fiasco, I'm not stopping you. I'm with you. But the current BE administration did not create this nightmare. And the BE in its new format will have to exist in partnership with the NCAA for as long as the NCAA exists to function. And if any of us learned anything about these events there is a lot of personal input to all this that is totally beyond fairness. So Aresco has to tread lightly.

An aside: the same *sshole JH hired PP for two reasons. He wanted a nice guy who was a yes guy. And he wanted to knock down a powerful donor.