UConn men's basketball rivalry with Providence moves to Madison Square Garden for Big East Tournament

[Skiblets]

I can't believe we're even in a conference with Providence, that's what I think of Providence.

Maybe their coach could attempt to Manufacture a rivalry by talking to the press and creating some sort of trophy without talking to UConn ……….

 

[Dogdeacon]

There is a unique, productive in short-term but destructive in long-term UConn desire to dismiss Universities and basketball teams in close proximity as rivals.

Exhibit A = UMass: Calhoun theorizes that playing UMass legitimizes their program & helps UMass recruiting at expense of UConn. Looks bad for UConn when Calipari briefly brings UMass to national prominence, but quickly proves successful as UMass falls into the abyss after Calipari leaves. Can make a case that UConn isn't as successful if UMass is perennial top-25 (i.e. in that world does Shabazz Napier go to UMass?!). Haven't played since 2005, that is ABSURD.

Exhibit B = Boston College: A sniff of becoming basketball rivals via meeting often in the dreaded 8-9 game the day before the real BE tourney started. BC was riding Flutie era prominence & occasional BBall success & always shops a snotty contention of superior academics vs other NE sports colleges. This was a rivalry in mediocrity though & UConn put BC basketball in its rearview (where its stayed), but then BC used its connections defect/destroy the Big East AND screw UConn in conference realignment game. The Karma police have exacted their revenge on BC hoops ever since. But the 'schools' from admin to alumnus do seem to still sports hate each other. Haven't played in hoops since 2013, that's RIDICULOUS!

Exhibit C = Providence: Basketball competitiveness has waxed and mostly waned for Providence, but they have a decent long-term body of work and games at the Dunk are inarguably the easiest and most intense road games for UConn fans to enjoy. The fact that Providence & UConn are competitive colleges for similar pools of students has to weigh in here too (as it does for so many NE schools).

Exhibits D-Z = every other school in CT and New England. UConn mostly plays the crappiest teams in CT, no regular series with marginal D1s Yale (haven't played since 2014?!) or Fairfield (haven't played since 2011) or Hartford (played twice since 98?!) kept at two arms away length all on the more to lose than gain theory. This is bullcrap. Arguably UConn's greatest success came b /c it invited schools to the CT Mutual Classic, got embarrassed as Northeastern handed it to us, but then realized HEY let's hire their coach = that's how a middling Connecticut basketball team became The UConn Basketball program.

Frankly I'm sick of it. The conference realignment clustfork has taught us that regional rivalries are EONS better for fans than behemoth national conferences. NE college football will never mean anything as long as schools try to step over each other for King of the Mountain vs trying to rise all boats. As a UConn fan when you provide other people the rationale for not playing UMass or others it always comes off with a tad too much chicken turd flavoring for my taste. I'm glad that BC & UConn football are regularly playing each other. Let's kick their butt in their homecoming game next year! Dave Gavitt founded the BE on the principal of local/regional rivalries & UConn should embrace that principal, it works.

 

[Palatine]

Every one of us here will be ticked off if PC wins tomorrow. This game means something! A loss to Marquette,Creighton or Xavier would be easier to accept. Don’t kid yourselves.

Everyone of us would be ticked off with any loss. Yes, a loss to a better team probably would probably be easier to swallow. Losing to Peee Cee would be more like losing to St John's or Seton Hall because we expect to win. Losing to any underdog would be bad, that fact that it would be to the friars doesn't make it better or worse than any loss to any underdog.

 

[August_West]

Villanova, a BRAND like us, is really our biggest conference rival.

Brand. I hate that term.

It is so Syracuse, it is what you rest on when you can't win on the court: Conference Dollars and Brand

 

[ctchamps]

Yeah, no worries. I enjoy talking with you on the boards.

Defining, a rivalry is kind of tough. It reminds me of the supreme court justice, who said that he didn’t have a definition for what constituted “pornography”, but he knew it when he saw it.

So, first and foremost, the game has to matter to both sides. We have 50% of that for UConn PC games. It’s their biggest game of the year. I could see why it matters to them. We are the big dog in New England, a national program with multiple national championships, and they are a small college located in a state adjacent to us. Proximity to us is really their only claim to fame in the modern era. I smiled when a poster above said that PC isn’t even a little brother, they are like a little cousin, and one that you don’t really see all that often. There’s a relationship of a sort, but it is not a particularly meaning for one.

The recent wins over Marquette, Providence and Villanova matter to me as a fan. Marquette because they have the best record and the win is important for our resume. Providence and Villanova because I want UConn to be better than any program in the northeast if not the nation and I feel more bragging rights among fellow NE conference mates than non conference programs. It's natural to have a bond/rivalry when you associate with something on a regular basis which is what conference play is about. As more time passes by Syracuse becomes less relevant to how I feel and this fascination with them is beneath me the same way court storming by UConn fans is beneath me. That's what happened to our Yankee Conference rivalries when we joined the BE - we don't need them anymore.

Tomorrow's game is incredibly important for us and Providence. I want to see more of that happening not less. That's how geographic rivalries strengthen. Casual fans in both states will more likely join the bandwagon if they have the added incentive of razzing each other. And that viewership translates into media interest.

 

[August_West]

I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but in his Big East Tournament preview article Fanta picked us to lose to Creighton in the final.

Here he picks Providence over UConn 2 days ago

 

[HuskyHawk]

Yeah, no worries. I enjoy talking with you on the boards.

Defining, a rivalry is kind of tough. It reminds me of the supreme court justice, who said that he didn’t have a definition for what constituted “pornography”, but he knew it when he saw it.

So, first and foremost, the game has to matter to both sides. We have 50% of that for UConn PC games. It’s their biggest game of the year. I could see why it matters to them. We are the big dog in New England, a national program with multiple national championships, and they are a small college located in a state adjacent to us. Proximity to us is really their only claim to fame in the modern era. I smiled when a poster above said that PC isn’t even a little brother, they are like a little cousin, and one that you don’t really see all that often. There’s a relationship of a sort, but it is not a particularly meaning for one.

That leads us to the second criteria that comes to mind, that you need to have had meaningful games with the opponent to create a rivalry. When did Connecticut and Providence ever play each other in a game that was really meaningful? Certainly not on a national level and I don’t recall ever playing them to win one of our, what is it seven conference championships. Rivalries evolve naturally when opponents take something meaningful from you and the loss stings. Can you come up with anything for PC? Me either. Now some might say, well, I hate losing to them, but I would ask do you really hate losing to them more than you would hate losing to say, Fairfield or Yale? Losing to a traditionally inferior local opponent is annoying, but it’s not a rivalry.

Finally, the two programs need to be of equal stature and capability, so that the outcomes of the games are in doubt. That results in every game, being a battle, and close contested games help fuel the fire of a rivalry.

So, who are rivals now? I’m not sure that we have any. Certainly, there’s mutual dislike between the fan bases of Syracuse and Connecticut, but we don’t play them often enough for those games to be meaningful. Likewise, we despise BC fans, mostly because their school blackballed us from joining the ACC decades ago. But even when they played us with frequency, they weren’t much of a rival because the games weren’t competitive. Connecticut had like what, 20 something odd game winning streak versus Boston College. So, who’s left, Nova because they kept our seat warm as top dogs in the Big East when we were gone? Seton Hall because we often go after the same kids and they seem to have an ability to win games against us? I don’t think so. No one really leaps off the page. One can argue that we had a sort of rivalry with Duke back in the day when we were playing each other for meaningful games. We probably did, but their main rival is, of course, UNC with whom they have physical proximity and a long history of meaningful games.

So, rivalries aren’t mandated. They need to develop naturally over time. The question “so who is our rival” implies that you must have one. I don’t think that’s the case, and as we saw from the Diaco/UCF Conflict debacle, trying to force it ends up being a bad look.

To your point, a quote from an article I saw in the Darien Times.

Despite being conference mates for 37 of the past 44 seasons, the Huskies and Friars have only met in the Big East tournament four times. That's less than any of UConn's fellow original Big East members, Georgetown and Seton Hall (eight meetings each) St. John's (six), and even since-departed Syracuse (14) and Pittsburgh (seven). Heck, the Huskies faced Cincinnati in the American Athletic Conference tournament as often as they've faced Providence in the Big East tourney.

Obviously, a big game tomorrow, but we need to play them in the final. Until we beat Creighton this year, they were becoming the team I felt like we had to beat. I think we've done that with Nova now as well. The issue with Creighton, Xavier and Marquette being the top of the conference with UConn is that the lack the geography and history.

 

[huskyjawz]

To your point, a quote from an article I saw in the Darien Times.



Obviously, a big game tomorrow, but we need to play them in the final. Until we beat Creighton this year, they were becoming the team I felt like we had to beat. I think we've done that with Nova now as well. The issue with Creighton, Xavier and Marquette being the top of the conference with UConn is that the lack the geography and history.

I loathe the success these teams are having. When Miami and Va Tech came into the conference they could barely win a game for years.

 

[John]

I loathe the success these teams are having. When Miami and Va Tech came into the conference they could barely win a game for years.

It was a much deeper and better conference in that iteration.

 

[Waquoit]

When did UConn lose to Syracuse 3 times and win the title? That never happened in 1999, 2004, 2011, or 2014.

What actually happened is Cuse played UConn twice their natty year and I don't think they ever took the lead.

 

[CL82]

The recent wins over Marquette, Providence and Villanova matter to me as a fan. Marquette because they have the best record and the win is important for our resume. Providence and Villanova because I want UConn to be better than any program in the northeast if not the nation and I feel more bragging rights among fellow NE conference mates than non conference programs. It's natural to have a bond/rivalry when you associate with something on a regular basis which is what conference play is about. As more time passes by Syracuse becomes less relevant to how I feel and this fascination with them is beneath me the same way court storming by UConn fans is beneath me. That's what happened to our Yankee Conference rivalries when we joined the BE - we don't need them anymore.

Tomorrow's game is incredibly important for us and Providence. I want to see more of that happening not less. That's how geographic rivalries strengthen. Casual fans in both states will more likely join the bandwagon if they have the added incentive of razzing each other. And that viewership translates into media interest.

Every postseason game is important. When we played Saint Josephs in the NCAA in, what was it 2014, it was important, but it didn’t make Saint Joseph’s our rival.

 

[ElGreco]

Brand. I hate that term.

It is so Syracuse, it is what you rest on when you can't win on the court: Conference Dollars and Brand

I like it. Not that many teams can claim it

 

[ElGreco]

Who called it the biggest? I think we have rivals, I wouldn't call any one of them the biggest at this point. Not Nova but I see them as a rival, not anyone at this point takes "biggest" for me. I can tell you I personally hate losing to Providence more than losing to Nova. It's that simple for me. Doesnt mean Providence is the biggest rival though. But they are one. Creighton is building towards one for me.

I agree with your PeeCee thoughts, mainly due to the relatively few envious and childish fans. To make my point, there is a reason we played Villanova on a Saturday night prime time national tv.

 

[ElGreco]

Yeah, they absolutely are a rival, but they aren't "the one team we want to beat above all others" the way Syracuse was.

It's going to be intense tomorrow.

Look at the Friar’s chat. No matter the topic there is always childish envy & hate somewhere in there. They even had a topic disparaging Sanogo and asking if there was ever a more disappointing season after being named pre-season POY. Insanity! He led the conference in scoring and was high in rebounds. I totally agree with who won it and on a first place team. Ridiculous! I have no issues with PC. Like their players and how Cooley has elevated PC.

 

[Rico444]

Here he picks Providence over UConn 2 days ago

Big East Tournament: Creighton, UConn headline wide-open field | FOX Sports

The Big East Tournament appears to be more wide open than it's been in a long time. Here's everything to know.

www.foxsports.com

Semifinals prediction:

• UConn over Marquette
• Creighton over Seton Hall

Championship game prediction:

• Creighton over UConn

 

[hayman522]

Every one of us here will be ticked off if PC wins tomorrow. This game means something! A loss to Marquette,Creighton or Xavier would be easier to accept. Don’t kid yourselves.

Providence game will be very tough tommorrow I hope we are ready for the physical challenge. If the refs are fair I believe we will win. If Providence gets away with their physical play it could be a long afternoon.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[UCSouth]

Brand. I hate that term.

It is so Syracuse, it is what you rest on when you can't win on the court: Conference Dollars and Brand

What do you really expect @ElGreco to call it? After all he/she gives off a PC fan trolling the BY vibe. Of course, that's just my opinion.