Upset of UConn is good for the game?

[UConnCat]

TV ratings for the men's Final Four and championship game were up over last year as well. The rating for the UNC/Gonzaga game was up 21% over last year's UNC/Villanova.

The NCAA did well. . . again.

 

[Phil]

As with many articles, there are some things that are praiseworthy and others that are head scratching.

Others have noted some of the head scratching comments but I want to talk about this one:

Geno Auriemma came to UConn in 1985, and didn’t win a national title until ten years later. Coaches today get five or six years tops to make anything happen, or they’re gone.

To start with, it's journalistically sloppy. She notes that it took Geno 10 years to win a national title and then contrast that to the present day where coaches only get five or six years to make something happen. If I were to point out how many coaches have been around five or six years without a national championship, she would respond that "make anything happen" doesn't necessarily mean a national championship. But she used a national championship to come up with a 10 year period. UConn was an the final four in 1991 six years later. If coaches have five or six years to get to the final four, Geno met that goal so the suggestion that Geno got a longer period of time than today is flawed.

I don't disagree that coaches may be on a shorter leash today than they used to be. I'd argue that this is a good thing. In years past, the view of many schools was that they should work hard to get national prominence for the men's program but who really cares about the women's program? I think it is a good sign the schools is showing evidence of caring about women's programs which inevitably means cutting loose coaches who are unable to perform. However, expecting women's programs to perform is one thing, expecting something like a final four in five or six years is something else.

There are 132 Division I coaches, still in their position, who were hired prior to the 2012–13 season. If you have final four appearances on the resume but most do not. A handful might be on the hot seat but the suggestion that most of these coaches are about to get fired is ludicrous. If you would like to argue that coaches are on a shorter leash than they used to be, do some homework and provide some evidence. The claim made in this article is just simply nonsense.

 

[UConnCat]

As with many articles, there are some things that are praiseworthy and others that are head scratching.

Others have noted some of the head scratching comments but I want to talk about this one:

Geno Auriemma came to UConn in 1985, and didn’t win a national title until ten years later. Coaches today get five or six years tops to make anything happen, or they’re gone.

To start with, it's journalistically sloppy. She notes that it took Geno 10 years to win a national title and then contrast that to the present day where coaches only get five or six years to make something happen. If I were to point out how many coaches have been around five or six years without a national championship, she would respond that "make anything happen" doesn't necessarily mean a national championship. But she used a national championship to come up with a 10 year period. UConn was an the final four in 1991 six years later. If coaches have five or six years to get to the final four, Geno met that goal so the suggestion that Geno got a longer period of time than today is flawed.

I don't disagree that coaches may be on a shorter leash today than they used to be. I'd argue that this is a good thing. In years past, the view of many schools was that they should work hard to get national prominence for the men's program but who really cares about the women's program? I think it is a good sign the schools is showing evidence of caring about women's programs which inevitably means cutting loose coaches who are unable to perform. However, expecting women's programs to perform is one thing, expecting something like a final four in five or six years is something else.

There are 132 Division I coaches, still in their position, who were hired prior to the 2012–13 season. If you have final four appearances on the resume but most do not. A handful might be on the hot seat but the suggestion that most of these coaches are about to get fired is ludicrous. If you would like to argue that coaches are on a shorter leash than they used to be, do some homework and provide some evidence. The claim made in this article is just simply nonsense.

Good point. Here's another head scratcher:

Auriemma built a program over the decades that, by about year 17 (Taurasi-Bird-Cash era), was running itself. He and his staff don’t have to utilize too many resources to recruit players, as athletes come to them or say yes the first time they’re asked to sign. Husky coaches can spend most of their resources on precise, methodical player development, which is a luxury most teams don’t have. UConn doesn’t need to do much publicity, either, as every news outlet in Connecticut pumps out story after story on the team all year round. It’s no wonder Auriemma’s teams have such tight play, because creating that is his only job.

Telling other teams to “just get better” is not a fair statement; it’s overly-simplistic and trite.

What is "overly simplistic" and "trite" is how little she understands about much time and effort Geno, Chris, Shea and Marisa put in to recruiting. No, players don't just say yes the first time they're asked to sign. In fact, many say no. The elite players in the Class of 2013 said no, though maybe that was a good thing. After UConn won its 100th straight game did Geno sit back, pour a glass of wine and wait for players to come to him and say yes? No, the very next day he was on a plane to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Geno sits in as many high school gyms and AAU tournament games as any other coach in the country. Geno makes as many home visits as other coaches as well. What is she talking about?

Oh, and Geno's only job is to create "tight play?" Really? Seems to me he had another job for the past 8 years and did pretty well at that job too. This entire paragraph is wrong and insulting.

Another head scratcher is the idea that UConn is a finesse team as compared to those rugged SEC teams that crash the boards and bang in the lane. I doubt any coach in the country would say UConn is a finesse team. UConn is a highly skilled team that shares the basketball, shoots well and also knows how to play physical basketball (see games against Baylor and South Carolina and Florida State). Honestly, this person does not understand basketball.

 

[Phil]

If you have final four appearances

I'm too late to edit this, but it should read "A few..."

 

[Carnac]

TRANSFERS, that's the talk of the tournament winners. And two can play that game, UCONN getting a couple of blue chippers for the next run. Dawn has helped recruiting, and an article said she hired an offensive specialist to compensate for her admitted coaching gaps. Do all roads now go through Columbia, SC?

NO!!! All roads will go through Columbia (or any where else) when a coach can string together a number of consecutive NC's like Geno has. Anybody can win "one" championship. Muffet McGraw, Gary Blair and Carolyn Peck proved that. What have they done since? Create a dynasty and win 3-4 in a row, then we'll talk about changing road signs. Let's see how Dawn follows up next season.

How dominant will her program be? Dawn lost some key players from this year's team. Replacing them may not be as easy as some may think. Will they remain a top 5 team? Was this year's run for SC a flash in the pan, or a preview of things to come? Will South Carolina be the odds on favorite as the team to beat for next year's NC?. Will they supplant UConn as the elephant in the room? We'll see.[/QUOTE]

 

[Plebe]

As with many articles, there are some things that are praiseworthy and others that are head scratching.

Others have noted some of the head scratching comments but I want to talk about this one:

Geno Auriemma came to UConn in 1985, and didn’t win a national title until ten years later. Coaches today get five or six years tops to make anything happen, or they’re gone.

To start with, it's journalistically sloppy. She notes that it took Geno 10 years to win a national title and then contrast that to the present day where coaches only get five or six years to make something happen. If I were to point out how many coaches have been around five or six years without a national championship, she would respond that "make anything happen" doesn't necessarily mean a national championship. But she used a national championship to come up with a 10 year period. UConn was an the final four in 1991 six years later. If coaches have five or six years to get to the final four, Geno met that goal so the suggestion that Geno got a longer period of time than today is flawed.

I don't disagree that coaches may be on a shorter leash today than they used to be. I'd argue that this is a good thing. In years past, the view of many schools was that they should work hard to get national prominence for the men's program but who really cares about the women's program? I think it is a good sign the schools is showing evidence of caring about women's programs which inevitably means cutting loose coaches who are unable to perform. However, expecting women's programs to perform is one thing, expecting something like a final four in five or six years is something else.

There are 132 Division I coaches, still in their position, who were hired prior to the 2012–13 season. If you have final four appearances on the resume but most do not. A handful might be on the hot seat but the suggestion that most of these coaches are about to get fired is ludicrous. If you would like to argue that coaches are on a shorter leash than they used to be, do some homework and provide some evidence. The claim made in this article is just simply nonsense.

That was the statement that, among many other dubious ones, jumped off the page at me. It's not just journalistically sloppy; it's downright dishonest because she knows what she's doing. She implies that if the early part of Geno's head coaching career were treated by today's standards, he might well have been fired after five or six years. Forget the fact that he took a perpetual bottom-dweller and led them to a 24-6 season with a Big East title and NCAA tournament appearance in his 4th year, and then to a Final Four in his 6th year.

Why didn't she use her idol Pat Summitt as her point of reference, since it took her even longer (until her 13th year) to win a national championship, and that was after she inherited an already winning program?

 

[Orangutan]

journalistically sloppy

It's a post on a her blog. In my opinion, that's hardly journalism. Which is not to say that her opinion is any less flawed.

 

[Plebe]

It's a post on a her blog. In my opinion, that's hardly journalism. Which is not to say that her opinion is any less flawed.

Setting aside the fact that the line between "blogging" and "journalism" is ever more blurred, the author presents herself as a journalist. She attends games with media credentials, watches games from the press table, attends the press conferences, etc. She gets to vote on some of the POY and COY awards as a member of the media. She also claims to have worked for a number of years as a sports reporter. Just because she's not picked up by ESPN or other major outlets doesn't mean she shouldn't be held to the same standards as any journalist, especially when she purports to be one.

 

[UConnCat]

Ratings were up:



and on a similar note:

Interesting that Paulsen wrote a couple of years ago that UConn had played in 4 of the 6 most watched women's title games on ESPN, led by UConn v Oklahoma in 2002 (5.7M) and UConn v Tennessee in 2004 (5.6M), much higher ratings than Sunday night's game. I guess when you play in a lot of championship games you're going fill a lot of spots on the ratings comparisons. All of this proves that TV ratings is a function of several factors, including day of the week, time slot, teams involved, storylines, etc.

 

[my2cents]

The premise of the story is just plain wrong...Uconn losing was neither good nor bad for the game, it just was. Geno said that they would eventually lose, it was inevitable. The un-natural part was that it took 111 games for it to happen. As a Uconn fan, just disappointed that it happened at the Final 4. Not disappointed for me, but for the young athletes that worked so hard.,
As someone who was around Uconn in 1985, building UConn into the power it is now, could never be predicted in a million years. They played in a "dumpy" fieldhouse, had no separate offices and Geno had to be the tennis coach too. The school itself, bares no resemblance to what it is today. Geno ( and CD's) hard work then, and hard work today has made the program UNPARALLELED in the history of womens college basketball....
just a jealous Tenn Vol, basking in our loss....

 

[huskeynut]

If the author of the article, notice I didn't say journalist, is indeed a Vol fan, then there are two points to ponder.

First - she really has a lot of holes in her knowledge in terms of facts about UConn and how to build a program.

Second - I hope Tennessee takes her advice about it taking 10 years to win a national championship for a new coach. That will mean that Holly has 5 more years to go before Tennessee would fire her!

 

[UConnNick]

some teams are still going to suck

Yes, about 325+ teams in NCAA DI.