I'm not a basketball fan, guilty, I was a grad student, guilty. I think UConn is BETTER for winning in basketball but it doesn't get us to the power table and the idea that the Big East will save UConn from the inevitable split of the power conferences from the NCAA is ultimately wrong.
a northeast league has always been beneficial for those programs as the last 20 years has shown. Being a bit player in somebody else's conference has shown to be a losing scenario despite the money.
Such is our pathetic fate that despite our success in college's #2 sport, our endgame (barring a B12 invite) is to hope to get lumped with the rejects of a perhaps soon to collapse conference that shunned us time and time again.
Tbf out of those teams UCF probably has the most potential because they are willing to spend the big bucks their programs to make it successful. No one saw them hiring Malzahn after he got fired from Auburn. Couple more years in the Big 12 and I think UCF is one of the best teams in that conference.
I’m a big believer in the eventual P2 split. UCF won’t be a part of that group. If FSU, Clemson and Miami are potentially on the outside-looking-in for the SEC/B1G then there’s no world where the Big 12 programs matter in the long run.
This is reality. Regional football rivalries should the way to go. Fans would enjoy winning with mixed attendance. I lived in VT/NH for twenty years. The fans enjoyed that game. Williams College (a D3 powerhouse) would bring over 7000 a game.
The reality is that the P2 schools will be able to price the non-P2 schools out of the market for coaches, facilities, and athletes. Don't believe that our current success means that we are somehow immune to that economic reality. Perhaps the schools in the survivor of the big 12/ACC may have a shot, but everyone else will have the relevance that the Ivy League schools have now. They used to be the power schools in athletics.
True but all we are coveting is stability. We have earned everything whereas others were born into wealth.
The B12 and ACC aren't as stable as you think they are. UConn might already be in the best place for itself, and others could be joining us real soon
I'm probably one of the biggest proponents for UConn realignment on this forum. You literally laugh at me everytime I bring up the good qualities UConn brings to the table on the realignment threads
It's his shtick.
You mean coveting a BB & FB conference that generates enough revenue to sustain its athletic budget? Then yes, that’s what I want to see & Uconn deserves to be in a conference like that - instead of a basketball only conference of small schools with low revenue, which is also being carried by Uconn and new BE members that aren’t located east.
Completely disagree. The football program has been put in an extremely bad spot as has been rehashed on these boards over and over again. Despite having to play as an independent with all the CR moves taking place, UConn has recently beaten BCU, Fresno State, FIU, Liberty, Rice, and UMass twice. On a level playing field, the football program would thrive just as it did when it was in the Big East, whether that means joining the Big 12, ACC/remnants, a regional conference, alliance.
And what we're telling you is 10 years from now there will be no big time UConn basketball because they won't be in the same apparatus as the Big 10 and the SEC.
Your athletic department blueprint is Seton Hall, we heard you the first time.
My hope, and I am a CT resident and SU fan and alum, is that when the ACC implodes the Big East forms a football division and a hoops only division and it rolls Kansas in. Sure it will be second banana due to football revenue but the NCAA hoops championship will mean more than whatever they call the SEC/BIG championship in hoops. Just don't schedule those teams ever for anything.
A Big East-ACC hybrid league instantly is the best basketball league. At worst 1A/1B with Big 12.
Maybe they already are...
It must follow that if you suck at both FB and BB you have a decent chance at being safely ensconced in a P-2 or Big 12, ACC type conference. Consider BFC, Syracuse, Rutgers, WF etc. I guess we shouldn't excel at anything, lest we ruin our chances to move on to a better conference situation...
Sure, for football but not all that likely considering how many good football players there are and no way it happens for basketball. All non-revenue sports are in jeopardy across the country.
I think it's a virtual certainty that it will happen in basketball.