The state of UConn athletics | The Boneyard

The state of UConn athletics

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Simply put, this is not the same athletic department I grew up watching. Perhaps for a variety of reasons. I started following UConn athletics in the early 90s. By the time I was a student ('99-03), I'd say we had the best overall athletic department in the 13 team Big East along with Notre Dame and West Virginia. Our bread and butter was strong fall sports (men's and women's soccer, field hockey) with obviously UConn men's and women's basketball to follow. All of these teams were national title contenders year in and year out. The football upgrade was underway with Orlovsky getting the first big wins of the program. Later that decade we watched the baseball program improve due to an alum taking over. 2011 was arguably the watershed year. Men's bball title. Football BCS. Women's bball 90 game win streak. Baseball super regional. 2014 also strong with our 2nd time double win for the men and women. Compared to now, all the years were strong. Some more than others.

Fast forward to 2018.

1. We have by far the worst football program in Division 1. A historically bad defense giving up 50-60 points a game to garbage teams. Likely 3 bad coaching hires in a row. No recruiting. No sign of it ending anytime soon. There are no words I can write here to describe how bad this situation is. Everyone can see it.

2. We just had the 2 worst men's basketball seasons since pre Calhoun with some of the worst losses in 30 years. Obviously that coach is now gone and we are all optimistic about Hurley. We all feel hopeful this situation will improve.

3. The women's soccer program just had it's worst season in history. Benedict hired a coach with no head coaching experience. She was a player here and an assistant under a long time coach. Sound familiar? This was at a time the 2nd best women's soccer program in America. That program appears to be gone and not coming back.

Again, these are historically bad results for these 3 programs. Core programs. Obviously Hurley is off to a promising start and I am confident he will fix men's bball.

4. The men's soccer program hasn't made the College Cup since 2000. Pissed away most of their best chances to return. They sneaked into the NCAA Tournament this year and didn't even belong on the same field as Indiana today. Again it's not just losing it's how we lose. That's what is so disturbing. Our men's athletics teams during these years can't even compete with mid level Power 5 anymore let alone strong Power 5. They usually get annihilated.

5. Obviously women's bball, field hockey, and baseball have seemingly survived this stretch. For now.

6. The big upgrade the last years has been Warde's dream of Hockey East. I've watched it and 6 years in I'm not seeing many things to be excited about. The team plays sloppy hockey. Give up short handed goals. Can't hold leads late. Commit a lot of penalties. Just generally soft. No postseason wins yet. A lot of listless performances like both games this weekend with UMass-Lowell. I'll give Cav a year or 2 with his highly ranked recruiting class. But again, he better have his version of the Dream season soon if this was worth it. Especially with the arena drama.

So, that's where we currently are. Women's bball and field hockey are pretty much shielding the athletic department's general historically bad stretch. Again, there are reasons to be optimistic due to Hurley. But I can't even image the dread that will sink in if he isn't successful.

Blaming the conference is not an option for results this poor. It may be a factor but it can't do what we are seeing. Or could it? I think more likely we have a coaching problem in some of these programs. Or in the case of men's bball had one. If Penders can take the baseball team to NCAA tournaments when he plays the first 2 months on the road than I tend to believe our problems are caused by some really bad or uninspired coaching hires. That would also lay blame on the AD's that made those hires.

Is David Benedict bearing the brunt of a gigantic mess that was left for him? Has he failed to provide a clear vision going forward? What are his expectations for each of these programs? Are they being met? As a fanbase what can we do? Just sit around and hope it gets better?
 
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Fishy

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Men’s hoop is on the rise. Hockey is a new program and is honestly doing very well considering. Women’s sports, save soccer, are doing very well. Men’s soccer just hosted an NCAA tourney game and is getting a new facility in 18 months. Baseball has World Series MVPs.

Football can’t get any worse - I’ll give you that.

But long story made short, stop whining. I’d add that the athletic department that you grew up with played IAA football and could never dream of a Fiesta Bowl, didn’t have a hockey program, had won zero soccer titles and didn’t have 15 hoop titles or two coaches who were in the hall of fame.
 
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The Women's Soccer Quarterfinals have UCLA and Stanford from the west coast....Baylor from the SW and the eastern teams Penn State, Georgetown, FSU, UNC, and Tennessee.

A pretty good mix of teams/conferences.
 

CL82

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Men’s hoop is on the rise. Hockey is a new program and is honestly doing very well considering. Women’s sports, save soccer, are doing very well. Men’s soccer just hosted an NCAA tourney game and is getting a new facility in 18 months. Baseball has World Series MVPs.

Football can’t get any worse - I’ll give you that.

But long story made short, stop whining. I’d add that the athletic department that you grew up with played IAA football and could never dream of a Fiesta Bowl, didn’t have a hockey program, had won zero soccer titles and didn’t have 15 hoop titles or two coaches who were in the hall of fame.
UConn had won two soccer titles by the 90s, but other than that spot on.
 

storrsroars

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UConn had won two soccer titles by the 90s, but other than that spot on.

I'll go out on a limb and say that attendance at a typical UConn-Hartwick soccer game from say, 1975-85, outdrew football games vs Maine, UNH and the lot of Yankee Conference foes.
 

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I'll go out on a limb and say that attendance at a typical UConn-Hartwick soccer game from say, 1975-85, outdrew football games vs Maine, UNH and the lot of Yankee Conference foes.
When people would say what do you want to do this weekend our answer was "Watch the soccer team win and the football team lose, same as always." History repeats itself, I guess.
 
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I'll go out on a limb and say that attendance at a typical UConn-Hartwick soccer game from say, 1975-85, outdrew football games vs Maine, UNH and the lot of Yankee Conference foes.

I really hope that this is not the mentality that exists for much of your fan base nearly 2 decades into playing Division 1 Football. If so it may be time to give up on Division 1 Football. You can add Lacrosse, and spend more money on improving basketball and hockey. Football is way too big of an investment to maintain if nobody cares to even watch it.
 

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I really hope that this is not the mentality that exists for much of your fan base nearly 2 decades into playing Division 1 Football. If so it may be time to give up on Division 1 Football. You can add Lacrosse, and spend more money on improving basketball and hockey. Football is way too big of an investment to maintain if nobody cares to even watch it.

He was talking about the 70s and 80s, long before football upgraded. The fact that our football stadium still draws 25% capacity to watch the unquestioned worst team in FBS and all-time worst defense in FBS history is actually very impressive. And all that after 8 consecutive losing seasons where there was just one single losing season that we made it to a garbage bowl game (and lost). To me, that should signal to the AD and BOT to invest more money into football. You put UConn in a P5 conference with a .500 record and the Rent is sold out every single week. No question about that.

Honest question: do you think Penn State would draw 25% capacity if you are coming off 8 consecutive losing seasons, the last few losing seasons being spectacularly awful, AND you gave up 700 yards of offense per game, at least 50 points per game, and lost by 4 touchdowns per game? I don't think many fanbases in the country would.
 

storrsroars

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I really hope that this is not the mentality that exists for much of your fan base nearly 2 decades into playing Division 1 Football. If so it may be time to give up on Division 1 Football. You can add Lacrosse, and spend more money on improving basketball and hockey. Football is way too big of an investment to maintain if nobody cares to even watch it.

Point is, fans will pay attention and support a winner - and probably even a team that looks barely bowl eligible. Been a long time since we've seen one in football.

Attendance at recent Rent games has been below even that of old Yankee Conf games vs Maine and UNH. And I don't blame the fans who stay away one bit.
 
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I'll go out on a limb and say that attendance at a typical UConn-Hartwick soccer game from say, 1975-85, outdrew football games vs Maine, UNH and the lot of Yankee Conference foes.

I started attending UConn in the fall of 1978. Completely different UConn sports world back then. Women's sports were still a few years away from getting sanctioned by the NCAA. While people would go to football games, it was more of an after thought as people really didn't care about Yankee Conference football. The sports that really mattered to people at the time were soccer and basketball. Still, Joe Morrone's soccer team was the only real big time program on campus, while men's basketball was still a regional program (remember, the Big East had not been formed yet). At the time, the UConn had no NCAA tournament championships to its credit.
 
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He was talking about the 70s and 80s, long before football upgraded. The fact that our football stadium still draws 25% capacity to watch the unquestioned worst team in FBS and all-time worst defense in FBS history is actually very impressive. And all that after 8 consecutive losing seasons where there was just one single losing season that we made it to a garbage bowl game (and lost). To me, that should signal to the AD and BOT to invest more money into football. You put UConn in a P5 conference with a .500 record and the Rent is sold out every single week. No question about that.

Honest question: do you think Penn State would draw 25% capacity if you are coming off 8 consecutive losing seasons, the last few losing seasons being spectacularly awful, AND you gave up 700 yards of offense per game, at least 50 points per game, and lost by 4 touchdowns per game? I don't think many fanbases in the country would.

I understand that he was talking about an earlier point in history, however my question still remains the same. Do a large number of fans still hold the belief that a soccer game against a regional opponent is more appealing to attend than an FBS Football Game? I imagine the answer is no, but if many still do hold this belief can they be engaged? Do they want to be engaged? Obviously I don't know. Hopefully The AD has a handle on it.

I like Uconn and believe that the program was dealt a bum hand in realignment. I hoped you would get a young offensive minded coach after Disastro, but understood the reasoning and circumstances that made an Edsall Rehire logical at the time. That said a lot of the same things people are saying here now are the same things people who follow Rutgers were saying years ago. Give us better opponents and a .500 Record and we'll sell out every time. Well Rutgers is in The B1G playing better opponents. The record is not so easy to come by however. As a result they don't come close to selling out these days no matter who's in town. Even when Penn State, OSU or Michigan are on the home schedule the stands are often 50% or more visitors. Bad teams are a difficult sell no matter who they're playing. Especially if that team doesn't have decades of tradition to fall back on.

As for your question on PSU Football, yes I do believe they would draw 25%. Actually I think they would draw well above that. Probably around 60-70 thousand under your scenario. Going to games in the Fall is ingrained in generations of alumni and PA Residents alike. Its a big deal here just like it is in The South, or in places like Columbus, Ohio, or Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be displeasure in the crowd because of the losing, or that a number of people wouldn't leave early to tailgate in the lots, but it would honestly take more than you described to bottom out attendance to a 25% figure.

I personally sat through 4 out of 5 losing seasons from 2000-2004 and I don't believe that attendance ever dipped much below 100,000. It wasn't until the entire Sandusky Scandal unfolded that certain factions of the fan base stayed away from games for a wide range of personal reasons. Attendance dipped to Pre-Beaver Stadium Expansion lows of >93,000 at times between 2012-2015, but has since rebounded well north of 100 K under Franklin. A more honest comparison would be Penn State Basketball. Since leaving the confines of old Rec Hall, there have always been issues with attendance. Many believed going from The A10 to the B1G would be enough to drive attendance, but the product has been mostly mediocre to bad over the years, and The BJC as a cookie cutter multi purpose facility has a meh home environment for anybody but the top opponents. Quite honestly the parallels between our two schools and their athletic programs are quite interesting if you swap Football for Basketball on either side of the comparison.
 
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storrsroars

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The sports that really mattered to people at the time were soccer and basketball. Still, Joe Morrone's soccer team was the only real big time program on campus, while men's basketball was still a regional program (remember, the Big East had not been formed yet). At the time, the UConn had no NCAA tournament championships to its credit.

No titles, but the Hanson/Whelton/Abro/LaVigne/Corny/McKay era you came in at the end of was entertaining and pretty good hoops. The Fieldhouse was often packed to capacity.
 
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No titles, but the Hanson/Whelton/Abro/LaVigne/Corny/McKay era you came in at the end of was entertaining and pretty good hoops. The Fieldhouse was often packed to capacity.

Very true. Corny Thompson and Mike McKay were also freshmen my first year at UConn. Abromaitas and Lavigne were also on that team. At the time I my family was living in western Connecticut and had no connection to UConn basketball. However, very quickly during my freshman year I became a UConn hoops fanatic.
 

storrsroars

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I understand that he was talking about an earlier point in history, however my question still remains the same. Do a large number of fans still hold the belief that a soccer game against a regional opponent is more appealing to attend than an FBS Football Game? I imagine the answer is no, but if many still do hold this belief can they be engaged? Do they want to be engaged? Obviously I don't know. Hopefully The AD has a handle on it.

I like Uconn and believe that the program was dealt a bum hand in realignment. I hoped you would get a young offensive minded coach after Disastro, but understood the reasoning and circumstances that made an Edsall Rehire logical at the time. That said a lot of the same things people are saying here now are the same things people who follow Rutgers were saying years ago. Give us better opponents and a .500 Record and we'll sell out every time. Well Rutgers is in The B1G playing better opponents. The record is not so easy to come by however. As a result they don't come close to selling out these days no matter who's in town. Even when Penn State, OSU or Michigan are on the home schedule the stands are often 50% or more visitors. Bad teams are a difficult sell no matter who they're playing. Especially if that team doesn't have decades of tradition to fall back on.

As for your question on PSU Football, yes I do believe they would draw 25%. Actually I think they would draw well above that. Probably around 60-70 thousand under your scenario. Going to games in the Fall is ingrained in generations of alumni and PA Residents alike. Its a big deal here just like it is in The South, or in places like Columbus, Ohio, or Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be displeasure in the crowd because of the losing, or that a number of people wouldn't leave early to tailgate in the lots, but it would honestly take more than you described to bottom out attendance to a 25% figure.

I personally sat through 4 out of 5 losing seasons from 2000-2004 and I don't believe that attendance ever dipped much below 100,000. It wasn't until the entire Sandusky Scandal unfolded that certain factions of the fan base stayed away from games for a wide range of personal reasons. Attendance dipped to Pre-Beaver Stadium Expansion lows of >93,000 at times between 2012-2015, but has since rebounded well north of 100 K under Franklin. A more honest comparison would be Penn State Basketball. Since leaving the confines of old Rec Hall, there have always been issues with attendance. Many believed going from The A10 to the B1G would be enough to drive attendance, but the product has been mostly mediocre to bad over the years, and The BJC as a cookie cutter multi purpose facility has a meh home environment for anybody but the top opponents. Quite honestly the parallels between our two schools and their athletic programs are quite interesting if you swap Football for Basketball on either side of the comparison.

Regarding your losing seasons:
1) You had big schools on the schedule.
2) You had big school rivalries on the schedule.
3) Your team was still competitive.
4) 5-7, 5-6, 3-9, 4-7 seasons in B1G are quite different than 1 or 2 win seasons in AAC with the world's worst defense.
5) Would you have attended Wake Forest games regularly in the ~30 years between 1974-2004 when they were simply awful. Or, would you regularly attend Rutgers games today?
6) PSU is a cult.
 
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Fishy

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UConn had won two soccer titles by the 90s, but other than that spot on.

I grew up in New York - you’ll have to forgive me on anything before 1990.
 
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I grew up in New York - you’ll have to forgive me on anything before 1990.

UConn men won in 1981 and then again in 2000. I think they won an unofficial title back in the 1940's or 1950's before soccer became a sanctioned NCAA sport.

UConn women have not won it, though they have lost the title match 4 times (1984, 1990, 1997, 2003), each time to UNC and of those 4 matches, 2 were played in Chapel Hill, 1 in Greensboro, and 1 in Cary. The NCAA seemed to be confused about what a 'neutral' site championship game means.
 
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Yeah I mean - I just don't see a future for football here, but I felt like that in the 90's.

Part of the reason basketball rose the way it did was obviously a hall of fame coach - but we had Boston/NYC RIGHT THERE in a conference that were all in it to build BASKETBALL and a brand amongst each other. There were regional and geograpic ties, fans could travel... and the games were being played in huge media markets. It was really a perfect storm when you think about how that all came together. The Celtics were an institution, the Knicks were at their peak in the mid 70s, college basketball was always a huge deal in NYC... everything was there. Ingredients, geographic, everyone pulling from the same rope.

I don't have 20 minutes to write anything elaborate, but college football isn't a part of the culture in the northeast in any real, meaningful way. The youth infrastructure isn't good and it's not going to improve as people gradually back off of football as a youth sport the way they have in recent years. The conference is built up entirely of schools who are doing everything they can to get out of it. There are no geographic or cultural ties. Sure - Orlando, Houston, Dallas.. they're there - but they're football markets.

I guess what i'm saying is, the ingredients aren't in the stew. And so what that usually leads to is a big effort to get to a point - but even assuming you can build a program to a point - if you don't have that support structure, it's impossible to maintain it unless you just get lucky. Your margin for error is slim even when you're in a good situation - never mind the one we've been in. And that's really what happened here. We flopped around in the Big East for the better part of 10 years and then started to get decent. We made a Fiesta Bowl, but once Edsall left - the bottom fell out. Two bad hires, another conference shift and here we are. We ran a hell of a draw play for a number of years, but we just weren't in any position to be able to deal with the inevitable downturn.

Like how do you convince a recruit to come to a program that might have the worst defense in DI history? OR that plays in a completely empty stadium? For a program with no big traditional rivalries? In cold Connecticut? Even if you're just from the Northeast - you can play in a P5 conference w/ BC, Syracuse or Pitt. Or Penn State. Or flipping Rutgers, even. What happens when you end up in our spot is you get kids with unrealistic views of themselves - who are good to very good FCS players - who want to play FBS and don't really have options. You end up undersized, lacking talent, etc.

So I dunno. I dunno what the play is from here. The only play to me - is jsut to buy some time. And the best bet for that is Hurley turning he hoops program around so less of the spotlight is on the football team so they've got a chance to figure some things out. Assuming that's possible. But if we're at he next round of TV negotiations and things don't get better, it's def. time. I think it has to be on the table now.
 
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The basketball conference, the BE, does not yet have a team in the AP....

It is way early...but no Villanova, etc. surely caught my eye.

I suspect that the AP will shake out in the new year.
 

Dooley

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I understand that he was talking about an earlier point in history, however my question still remains the same. Do a large number of fans still hold the belief that a soccer game against a regional opponent is more appealing to attend than an FBS Football Game? I imagine the answer is no, but if many still do hold this belief can they be engaged? Do they want to be engaged? Obviously I don't know. Hopefully The AD has a handle on it.

I like Uconn and believe that the program was dealt a bum hand in realignment. I hoped you would get a young offensive minded coach after Disastro, but understood the reasoning and circumstances that made an Edsall Rehire logical at the time. That said a lot of the same things people are saying here now are the same things people who follow Rutgers were saying years ago. Give us better opponents and a .500 Record and we'll sell out every time. Well Rutgers is in The B1G playing better opponents. The record is not so easy to come by however. As a result they don't come close to selling out these days no matter who's in town. Even when Penn State, OSU or Michigan are on the home schedule the stands are often 50% or more visitors. Bad teams are a difficult sell no matter who they're playing. Especially if that team doesn't have decades of tradition to fall back on.

As for your question on PSU Football, yes I do believe they would draw 25%. Actually I think they would draw well above that. Probably around 60-70 thousand under your scenario. Going to games in the Fall is ingrained in generations of alumni and PA Residents alike. Its a big deal here just like it is in The South, or in places like Columbus, Ohio, or Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be displeasure in the crowd because of the losing, or that a number of people wouldn't leave early to tailgate in the lots, but it would honestly take more than you described to bottom out attendance to a 25% figure.

I personally sat through 4 out of 5 losing seasons from 2000-2004 and I don't believe that attendance ever dipped much below 100,000. It wasn't until the entire Sandusky Scandal unfolded that certain factions of the fan base stayed away from games for a wide range of personal reasons. Attendance dipped to Pre-Beaver Stadium Expansion lows of >93,000 at times between 2012-2015, but has since rebounded well north of 100 K under Franklin. A more honest comparison would be Penn State Basketball. Since leaving the confines of old Rec Hall, there have always been issues with attendance. Many believed going from The A10 to the B1G would be enough to drive attendance, but the product has been mostly mediocre to bad over the years, and The BJC as a cookie cutter multi purpose facility has a meh home environment for anybody but the top opponents. Quite honestly the parallels between our two schools and their athletic programs are quite interesting if you swap Football for Basketball on either side of the comparison.

Everything you wrote is fair. Sometimes I think fans of other schools who come here just don't fully, completely understand just how bad awful train wreck UConn football is in the past 8 years. I wasn't trying to compare our two schools or programs...was just asking a honest question.

Penn State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan...those are all special football fanbases. I don't wish our 2018 season on any of you (I really don't). That said, I would be interested to see how full some P5 stadiums would be if the product they were given was as historically awful as the one we have here. Rutgers is a pretty good comp, even though I suspect that many Rutgers fans are still in a honeymoon period and feeling incredibly thankful that they are in the Big 10. Really the only P5 program that has posted this level of awful was Kansas a few years ago. Kansas is actually a good comp for UConn - basketball school with significant football struggles - and they are investing heavily in football in the coming years with their stadium renovation and now Les Miles. I hope and pray that we can find the money to do the same.

Football vs soccer. I don't have any idea what the interest split is. I presume that most students prefer soccer because it's on campus, the games are played in 2 hours or less, no TV breaks/instant replay delays/etc, and no busses to have to worry about missing to/from the game. There's also an entertainment factor - it's really tough to blame anyone for not being entertained at any of our football games. Games are competitively over well before halftime on most weeks. Completely non-competitive losses every week. It would be hard for me or anyone to lecture to fans/students that wanting to attend a 2-1 soccer game is not good and that, instead, they should hop on a bus and go watch the football team lose to 2-win East Carolina 55-21. We're 29 point underdogs at home against Temple and I'd be shocked if that spread isn't covered by halftime. Ironically enough, we do have a decent amount of students that trek to East Hartford for the tailgate only. Then once the game kicks off and the tailgates are packed up, the students head back to campus to continue the party. Very few make it inside the stadium and, again, it's very hard to blame them.

My biggest gripe with UConn is that we have the largest AD budget in the entire G5 but one of the lowest pay scales for football coach. That's unacceptable. We are getting exactly what we are paying for being so goddam cheap.

I do think that UConn can draw well for football. We have in the past in seasons that hovered around .500 or below in the old Big East. I think that if UConn was invited to the ACC or Big 10 tomorrow, the stadium would be nearly sold-out from season tickets despite still being the worst team in the country. But I also admit that with every season that we're this bad...this awful...this much of a train wreck that those fans will be lost and it would take a miracle to bring them back to the Rent. Spending some money now to bring in a quality FBS staff would go a long way.
 

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The basketball conference, the BE, does not yet have a team in the AP....

It is way early...but no Villanova, etc. surely caught my eye.

I suspect that the AP will shake out in the new year.

I don't think fans realize just how much this new Big East relies upon Villanova. If they're down, like they are now, the conference is really no better than any other non-P5 conference. In fact, if UConn and Memphis can get going again, the AAC might be a better conference in the long-term.
 
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I don't think fans realize just how much this new Big East relies upon Villanova. If they're down, like they are now, the conference is really no better than any other non-P5 conference. In fact, if UConn and Memphis can get going again, the AAC might be a better conference in the long-term.

You're not really wrong.

-If Memphis and us can get it going again, that changes everything. It's the two programs with the most history and cache to make a run at things. They land Wiseman and that changes some things, I think.

-So long as they keep Marshall - I don't see Wichita State going anywhere. And I actually DO believe they have a shot at keeping him.

-Cincinnati has been fine. They're arguably been a little bitter than they were in the Big East.

-Houston has done almost everything right - I think they'll be good.

-I think there is a legit ceiling on both Temple and Tulsa, but there's also a super high floor on them, too. If they're middle of the back in our conference, you can do a lot worse.

-Tulane and UCF are headed in the right direction.

Literally the only two programs not headed in the right direction right now are UCF and ECU. Maybe SMU, too- but it's hard to tell. But if Memphis and UConn get it going the way they can, it could be a really good basketball conference really quick. There's a lot of good coaches here.
 

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You're not really wrong.

-If Memphis and us can get it going again, that changes everything. It's the two programs with the most history and cache to make a run at things. They land Wiseman and that changes some things, I think.

-So long as they keep Marshall - I don't see Wichita State going anywhere. And I actually DO believe they have a shot at keeping him.

-Cincinnati has been fine. They're arguably been a little bitter than they were in the Big East.

-Houston has done almost everything right - I think they'll be good.

-I think there is a legit ceiling on both Temple and Tulsa, but there's also a super high floor on them, too. If they're middle of the back in our conference, you can do a lot worse.

-Tulane and UCF are headed in the right direction.

Literally the only two programs not headed in the right direction right now are UCF and ECU. Maybe SMU, too- but it's hard to tell. But if Memphis and UConn get it going the way they can, it could be a really good basketball conference really quick. There's a lot of good coaches here.

Agreed. UConn is obviously the key to the AAC. If UConn assumes the "Villanova role" of the AAC, then this conference trickle-down effect takes off. Every conference needs its heavyweight to play like it to get respect and we haven't come close to playing top-level UConn basketball in the last few seasons.
 

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People will nitpick you and your post because being sparkly and bright is what makes some feel good and for others gets those coveted “likes”, but you are not wrong.

The gist of what you are saying, and the overarching point which is what really matters in the grand scheme of things, is that the UConn athletic department is regressing, trending downwards. Can’t argue with that.
 

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