UConn's Big East Rival | Page 2 | The Boneyard

UConn's Big East Rival

8893 said:
They’re all going to hate us because we are going to raise our leg and pee on all of them and establish (or re-establish, if you consider this the same league; I don’t) ourselves as the alpha dog of the league.

I think we need to accept and relish our role as the obnoxious, pompous fans who expect to come in and rule the roost because we have more National Championships and have experienced more greatness than any of them could ever dream to sniff.
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I think you meant then all of them combined
 
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nelsonmuntz said:
If Providence freaking College is ever our "rival" I will punch myself right in the face.
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They often kicked our butts at the Dunk. I know, I went to a lot of them. PC is definitely one of our rivals. They get up to play us, and are geographically closest, by far. Hell our campus is next to what was supposed to be a highway to Providence. I’m looking forward to those games at the Dunk again.

We never had a true rival. Just whoever was good as others said. Nova and Xavier plus Seton Hall now.
 
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HuskyHawk said:
They often kicked our butts at the Dunk. I know, I went to a lot of them. PC is definitely one of our rivals. They get up to play us, and are geographically closest, by far. Hell our campus is next to what was supposed to be a highway to Providence. I’m looking forward to those games at the Dunk again.

We never had a true rival. Just whoever was good as others said. Nova and Xavier plus Seton Hall now.
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Pitt and Syracuse were definitely rivals. St. Johns was too when they didn't suck. Villanova was for the last 10 years we were in the league together.
 
Can someone summarize the G'Town situation for me. I promise I am not being lazy, I just have read a ton of varying stories. So Akinjo is not involved in the investigation now but is transferring? Just confused.
 
UKemba15 said:
St. John’s rivalry could be renewed, with all the CT kids they’ve been snagging.
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Current roster says they have one kid from CT. Heron.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Pitt and Syracuse were definitely rivals. St. Johns was too when they didn't suck. Villanova was for the last 10 years we were in the league together.
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I was a fan before Calhoun, and was a student when we hired him. I never considered Pitt a "rival", even though they were good at times. Didn't consider Nova a rival until later after Syracuse abandoned the league. BC was a rvial briefly, when they had guys like Barros, Curley etc. St. Johns was when Lou was still there, after that they became a basket case. Syracuse was our #1 rival and we were their #2 to Georgetown. I always felt like Seton Hall would have been a long time rival if PJ had stayed.
 
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We never had an Ohio State / Michigan rivalry. I think Syracuse was the closest, but I may be biased because I knew a lot of people that went there. I think our rivals were cyclical, depending on how good we were and how good another team was over a period of a few years.

A true rivalry would survive a conference change. I think there are geographical rivalries that survived the Big East break up. BC and Providence come to mind. PC was never a rival to me because I'm a NJ public school guy. I never knew anyone that went to Providence ( had friends at BC). But clearly, Providence always hated UConn and I always loved that many at UConn didn't care about Providence.

Pitt was a rival for a while, and there were certainly some St. John's angst when we would take over their building with Jarvis there, but that was circumstantial since we all stopped caring the moment they both left the Big East (yes, you too St. John's). Syracuse is the only one that I think we can call a real rivalry since the loathing still seems in place.

Who will be our rival? I don't think we have enough in common with any Big East institution to have a permanent rivalry. WHEN we become a perennial top 3 finisher, they'll hate us, and we'll hate the others in our stratosphere, but I think we're just too different to care about another Big East school every year. Providence will always hate us though and I still don't care about them (other than now having an obnoxious neighbor that went there).
 
Chuck said:
I think we're just too different to care about another Big East school every year
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why does school size factor into this? Duke v. UNC and Stanford v. Cal are private v public rivalries, as was UConn v. Cuse
 
Robertelamin said:
Really? PC is higher on the list than DePaul, Creighton, Butler and Marquette for me.
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We have a lot more history with PC and they're right down the street but I get more geared up to play Marquette because it's pretty much always going to be a bigger win if we beat them, they're a way better program than PC.
 
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Excited to beat up on Marquette, the guys who run their sb nation site have some type of illusion that they are big time big East members with a lot of clout and have done so much for the league. They were balking at accepting us back talking about we don’t bring enough to the league. Had to remind them their big East resume doesn’t hold any weight compared to all we’ve done for the league
 
bendm said:
why does school size factor into this? Duke v. UNC and Stanford v. Cal are private v public rivalries, as was UConn v. Cuse
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I don't think I mentioned size. UConn and Syracuse are, however, pretty similarly sized at the undergrad level.

I don't personally know exactly what drives a true rivalry. Just my opinion. Familiarity over a long period of time is certainly a factor. We have that with a few of the New Big East (NBE) schools. Distance helps. In your examples, Duke and UNC are 20 miles away, Cal and Stanford are 46 miles apart. I'd add UCLA / USC to your examples. UConn has Providence within 60 miles. Applicants in common? I don't know. Your examples had geography and history. We can certainly build (or reengage) a rival over time, but I don't see anything that makes a natural rival.

I'll be at every UConn at Seton Hall game and a percentage of SJU games, so I'll be working to develop those as rivalries!
 
It's St. John's. We get to play them at MSG every year and bring more fans.
 
With Hurley at the helm it has to be providence. Their fan base hates him.
 
Chuck said:
I don't think I mentioned size.
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thought size was implied since you made the blanket statement that we are too different from all the other schools and size is the biggest difference i can think of, even though i think it's irrelevant

FWIW syracuse is just as far from storrs as nova is
 
The AAC would have been respected if UConn and Memphis lived up to their historical norms. The bottom of the AAC did not drag the conference down as much as our subpar play.

Rivalries need relevance. In the OBE our rivalries changed because we stayed relevant as most teams went through phases. The one exception was Syracuse which is why we love dumping on them more than any other team we have been conference affiliated with since the Yankee Conference. For example early in JC's UConn career we had a strong rivalry with BCU. They were geographically close, they had good teams and JC was a Boston guy. After going on that large win streak (20 straight wins against them?) they were unimportant to us and the rivalry shifted to Pitt, Nova, and Syracuse.

The women's team didn't need rivalries to be nationally respected. The BE developed into a modicum of respect because UConn women carried the conference on their back and brought up some teams. This really didn't happen for them in the AAC. It didn't matter. UConn women had a large bullseye on their back because everyone they played against circled that game against UConn on their calendar. They were the de facto rivals of everyone.

UCLA and USC football used to be a huge nationally perceived rivalry. It still is locally but UCLA has been in the dumps a long time and USC has been as well recently. The rivalry between Michigan and OSU has lost a lot of luster with the dominance of OSU. This is similar to what happened between us and BCU although Michigan never became as irrelevant. If those football teams played each other twice or three times every year the interest would have decreased even more precipitously.

I was less interested in which conference we played in based on rivalries. Fans should be excited to watch their team no matter which team we play against. For me it's fun to watch development of teams and players. IMO there is much too much emphasis on the goal (winning a NC) at the detriment of being engaged with the team and players over the course of the season. It's a natural extension of rooting for a successful program that has won it all many times, but it's an anchor against enjoying things as they play out.

I have mixed emotions about going back to the BE. From a monetary standpoint it makes sense at this point in time. That's not a guarantee in the future. From a travel standpoint it's a significant improvement for most UConn sports sans football which is an unknown. That means fans can get to more venues increasing the noise potential at arenas as long as teams stay relevant. And relevancy is the key. The women's team draws large crowds in away games even when they are playing subpar teams. BCU struggled with attendance even though they are in the sexiest bb conference. Recruiting already has gotten a bump, but unless UConn does well that will rapidly change. Look at Georgetown. My biggest reservation is joining a league with small student enrollments. It will be harder for smaller universities to fund their ADs over time.

For now I'm happy. But outside of the couple of recruits who came our way because of the BE bump the major happiness is the development of the team.
 
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