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Yes, I was including Syracuse in that group.
Frankly, I was shocked that they weren't supportive of your invite. I honestly had no idea that they'd look upon UConn as you say. What has made the Carolina-Duke rivalry work so well are the differences between the two schools. Each has pushed the other to be better, on the field, and, off of it. Theres no bigger or better feeling than beating the other at ANYTHING.
UConn-Syracuse could have been the same thing within this league. Ditto UConn-BC. It could have made for a fun mini free-for-all in the northeast for the ACC. For all of the grief he catches about everything, Swofford knew this, too. That the untapped potential you all have would have been a boon for the league. Not to mention, completely outflank the B1G in that part of the country. A few folks here have ripped him for what transpired, but, he doesn't have the authority to unilaterally invite/disinvite a school.
ZooCougar was spot on that the ACC is now full of the Big East 'politics'. You folks will learn about it soon enough. It runs deep and wide in many ways. You've got it all now in the ACC, from Notre Dame football to Syracuse Basketball to the void in Pittsburgh.....and you've ahd BC for years. Very quickly you will learn that Syracuse has itself embedded with so-called 'sports journalism' in the largest and most widely read media outlets, and unfortunately for Cuse - it's really only the strongest thing they've got going anymore - is their ability to push themselves public perception wise in the sports media. And in fact, the power of the pen - is pretty strong - but it's not invincible. Read Pete Thamel's SI article on the NCAA championship. If you think I'm nuts, you'll learn soon enough, I'm not.
It was nice to see Jay Bilas' tweet today about UCONN and the APR. Duke has a lot of intelligent people out there in the sports world now, and they aren't going to like the politics of their new ACCBeast.