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WE are a basketball School

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There seem to be people in this thread who don't seem to realize we can't join a P5 league without an invitation.

I keep hearing how terrible the AAC is. Hopefully we can try to finish in the top 3 of it someday.
 
There is no question that we are a basketball school. The question really is do we wish to be a Kentucky/Duke type of basketball school, with full access to the same revenue streams as other elite programs' schools OR do we wish to be a Seton Hall/St John's type of basketball school with no money and absolutely no shot at winning a national title ever again? Follow the money people. Joining the Big East is a lateral move, at best. And it locks in our mid-majordom forever.

No thanks. It's B1G/ACC or bust.
 
3rdbass said:
Most of us realize it won't happen and that we are stuck in the AAC but we want to voice our displeasure in the direction the school has taken at the expense of the men's basketball team. We realize the chance of a P5 bid are almost nothing. I mean if we didn't get it when we were in a better position in the Old Big East what will change in the future? Real question. I understand going to the NBE might mean doom and gloom down the road but at least we should have another 5-10 years of competing at the top of pile.
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Last season the AAC was better than the BE even discounting Ville. This was expected to be a down year with UConn, Cinci, and Memphis losing a majority of their starters. No one expected Houston to lose their coach and their players to leave. The two teams expected to do well were Tulsa and SMU and they are doing fine.

You hang on to nostalgia. Does great for the Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians and Persians. I miss the rivalries as much as the next person. But when UConn first joined the BE I had as much apathy about the conference in the beginning as I do with this one.

The Catholic schools will not be able to support the athlete tuitions in the long run if ever. So they will be quickly losing their quality recruits. Don't want to be part of that conference when it happens. At least the AAC is composed of a majority of schools that will vote to keep up with the P5. Besides as BL put it the only school that wanted UConn to join the NBE was Georgetown, so this conversation is moot.
 
Fishy said:
Like, you know, last year?

Good lord.
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I was about to write the same thing, but it occurred to me that he may have meant football.
 
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itgoeslike said:
It might feel good for a couple of years, but when the buzz wears off and they wake up in a festering pile of increasing irrelevance with few options to climb out of regional university hell, there will be regret.
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Possibly the best sentence on the Boneyard today. You had me at "festering pile of increasing irrelevance."
 
3rdbass said:
It gets us in a conference were are basketball stays relevant and playing in Northeast big TV markets as opposed to playing against the worthless AAC opponents. I mean playing Villanova and Georgetown and St. John's is a lot better than playing SMU, Tulsa and Temple. Recruits would rather play against Big East competition than AAC.
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Then why is there only 3 NBE schools in the top 40 classes for 2015, but 4 AAC schools?
 
uconndennis said:
We need to have much bigger aspirations than to be related in that league


Wrong...the people arguing for staying the course in the AAC are UConn fans. Fans and supporters of the university as a whole that understand there is a larger vision in place than yearning for the days of old...

Honestly, I seriously cant comprehend how you can be a basketball only fan at this point in time and not understand the importance of supporting the football program....literally blows my mind
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I grew up watching UCONN bball since the Corny Thompson, Chuck A and Karl Hobbs days and live and die UCONN bball. I have watched some UCONN football when they were in the Yankee Conf. and saw a couple games at GA Tech and went to their first bowl game. The football team just isn't fun to watch and I don't have the same passion for it as I do my favorite sports team. I rather root for FL st. in football. I understand there are a lot of football/basketball fans but I'm not one of them. I keep up with the football team just to see if they are getting better as that is our only chance in this horrible conference. Obviously they have been getting worst and that can't be helping our situation at all. So I support them only because I really care for the basketball program.

I'm sure the one thing we can all agree on though is that the past and present adminstrations have messed up royally for us to be even having this conversation!
 
Personally I have voiced my displeasure several times in the past over UConn's inability to develop a strong brand nationally which is an essential factor when conferences consider schools. A strong brand indicates staying power and financial support nationwide. Yet whenever I'd bring it up there were always a slew of fans who would dismiss it and say "UConn will continue to win the UConn way", which is simply ignorant and myopic. We won four national championships during the most competitive era in the college game, a feat that can only be rivaled by 3 programs ever, Duke, UCLA, UK. Yet despite being so massively successful, our program's leadership clung to the "small town, blue collar" mentality and did nothing to capitalize on the absolute domination being witnessed on the courts, and unfortunately we will pay for that mistake greatly.

The reality is that UConn was one year removed from having been the strongest candidate for expansion nationally. In 2011 we had come off a NC in mens bball with a monster class coming in, a final four in womens, a final four in soccer, and a BCS appearance in football, it really does NOT get any better than that. Yet two years passed and the APR sanctions threw dirt on our reputation and public image, we had a very disappointing season in bball, and then Pasqualoni happened and it was over. Louisville was proactive and capitalized on its recent success marvelously and stole, what I think, was the final life boat into the P5 for maybe the next decade or so. Like other have said, the AAC will continue to pull us down each year, making it even more difficult to stay relevant for future expansion opportunities.

That being said, I really think at this point our best bet is to invest in our academics and grow as a major research institution. The one billion dollar funding program from the state passed recently for an expanded science and technology center at Storrs and Farmington are a great start. Major conferences relevant to us like the ACC and B10 really put weight into that, especially the B10 (while the SEC and B12 couldnt care less about these things). If UConn can make itself a nationally relevant source of research expenditure as a major public, flagship university, we may just have a hope.
 
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Yankees32123 said:
If it means maintaining our basketball program's eliteness…yes.
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Every single post you've made in this thread illustrates that you have 0 understanding of conference realignment and it's ultimate end game.
 
Jerry1714 said:
Then why is there only 3 NBE schools in the top 40 classes for 2015, but 4 AAC schools?
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Here's the thing....look at the Big East standings.

Big East Standings
TEAM CONF OVERALL
Villanova 7-2 20-2
Providence 7-3 17-6
Butler 7-3 17-6
Georgetown 7-4 15-7
DePaul 6-5 12-12
Seton Hall 5-5 15-7
Xavier 5-6 14-9
St. John's 3-6 14-8
Marquette 2-8 10-12
Creighton 2-9 11-13

That's a great conference? Really?

It's Nova, then a few meh teams and then driftwood.

Calling that collection of mush the "Big East" is farcical.
 
Here's something I think never gets said/asked in these discussions: if the P5 branch off, is your interest in college sports going to be the same? For football, probably. But if the P5 started their own equivalent to March Madness - distancing themselves from Georgetown, Villanova, St. Johns and a whole host of other powers not sponsored by FBS football - I think I would mostly stop watching college basketball, and that is completely independent of whether UConn gets a P5 invite. Are you guys going to be fired up to watch UConn take on the tenth place team from the Pac-12 in the round of 64?

I'm a fan of UConn football. I don't want to see the program die, even in the event that the P5 call never comes. But, and I know I'm not breaking any news here, their current situation is preposterously stupid in every sense. College sports were not created to buoy TV revenue. And if the Big East - even in its current form - isn't a perennially competitive league because of money, then we're basically all signing up to watch glorified minor league basketball.
 
Long term, the AAC is dead and the Big East is dead.

If nothing changes, in 10-15-20 years, we'll likely be in a regional conference with UMass, St. John's, Providence, Rhode Island and whoever else we can get to by bus.

And there'll be some kind of tournament at the end of the season - maybe the P5 will set up a situation where the highest ranked non-P5 team wins a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Or maybe we'll revive the NIT on a grander scale.

So, Big East proponents, hang in there. You might get your wish.
 
What is outrageous on this board is that Memphis, SMU, UCF, Tulsa, Cincy etc., are all losers and we are the winners.
Why can't you guys get in to your heads that there are smart ambitious people running these schools who very much to be relevant in college sports and will succeed and have no intention of going quietly into the p-5 night. We need to get our football act together before condescending to our league partners.
Let me give you an example. Who the hell do you think pays for Florida State and Florida?
Nobody lives in Tallahassee and nobody lives in Gainseville. Millions live along the I4 corridor and we pay for Florida St and Florida. We also pay for USF and UCF. So, if the good citizens decide that are we don't want our money going to the p-5 conference but instead we want to fund the local colleges, it sort of puts a monkey wrench in the entire operation.
 
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pnow15 said:
What is outrageous on this board is that Memphis, SMU, UCF, Tulsa, Cincy etc., are all losers and we are the winners.
Why can't you guys get in to your heads that there are smart ambitious people running these schools who very much to be relevant in college sports and will succeed and have no intention of going quietly into the p-5 night. We need to get our football act together before condescending to our league partners.
Let me give you an example. Who the hell do you think pays for Florida State and Florida?
Nobody lives in Tallahassee and nobody lives in Gainseville. Millions live along the I4 corridor and we pay for Florida St and Florida. We also pay for USF and UCF. So, if the good citizens decide that are we don't want our money going to the p-5 conference but instead we want to fund the local colleges, it sort of puts a monkey wrench in the entire operation.
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Dude what are you talking about. Florida can pretty much fund itself from its football program and sponsorships. Also do you know how college conferences work?
 
7774 said:
Every single post you've made in this thread illustrates that you have 0 understanding of conference realignment and it's ultimate end game.
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These are the posts I hate. You can't discredit everything I've said because I know I've made some valid points, as have my opponents. But you actually think that sitting in the AAC waiting for football to be good so we can get a P5 invite will work? Football will take a while to get better in this conference and it will drag basketball down with it over time. Getting our football team in a conference like MAC and playing bball in the BE will keep our basketball play respectable for a few years and allow football to get better over time without killing basketball. Once that happens, we can hopefully get a P5 invite. Switching to the BE and playing football in a conference similar to the AAC like the MAC would not mean that we won't ever get a P5 invite. In fact, it might help our chances. The BE is a good conference for the time being, and probably will be way more respected than the AAC at least for the next 10 or so years. The entire restructuring of college athletics by the P5 will happen eventually, but that could be 30, 40, 50 years down the road for all we know. The P5 might have their own tournament, but that could be decades away. People are predicting an NCAA apocalypse, which will happen eventually, but who knows how or when. For the time being, we can set ourselves up in the same way as being in the AAC, but keep basketball afloat in a solid conference with teams that recruits actually want to play against. I don't want to go all in on the BE because the end goal obviously should be P5. But we won't get a P5 invite if the basketball program is not relevant 5-10 years from now. And that might happen if we stay in the AAC.
 
So, if we're going to ignore the fact that the Big East won't invite UConn (we can't really ignore that fact, but I guess we will for this ridiculous hypothetical) ... why are we ignoring the fact that the Big East simply isn't that good of a basketball conference anymore?

Yes, it's better than the AAC, but the difference isn't that big. And I fully expect the Big East to continue to decline now that the Catholic schools can't sell recruits on the possibility of playing UConn, Louisville, Syracuse, and Pitt every year.

UConn to the Big East is not happening, we don't want it to happen, and it's time we stop talking about it.
 
Yankees32123 said:
These are the posts I hate. You can't discredit everything I've said because I know I've made some valid points, as have my opponents. But you actually think that sitting in the AAC waiting for football to be good so we can get a P5 invite will work? Football will take a while to get better in this conference and it will drag basketball down with it over time. Getting our football team in a conference like MAC and playing bball in the BE will keep our basketball play respectable for a few years and allow football to get better over time without killing basketball. Once that happens, we can hopefully get a P5 invite. Switching to the BE and playing football in a conference similar to the AAC like the MAC would not mean that we won't ever get a P5 invite. In fact, it might help our chances. The BE is a good conference for the time being, and probably will be way more respected than the AAC at least for the next 10 or so years. The entire restructuring of college athletics by the P5 will happen eventually, but that could be 30, 40, 50 years down the road for all we know. The P5 might have their own tournament, but that could be decades away. People are predicting an NCAA apocalypse, which will happen eventually, but who knows how or when. For the time being, we can set ourselves up in the same way as being in the AAC, but keep basketball afloat in a solid conference with teams that recruits actually want to play against. I don't want to go all in on the BE because the end goal obviously should be P5. But we won't get a P5 invite if the basketball program is not relevant 5-10 years from now. And that might happen if we stay in the AAC.
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There is just so much wrong in this post that I don't want to spend the time it would take to respond to it all. I'll just say it's amazing you could watch Rutgers get a Big Ten invite and still think the quality of our basketball team will impact whether or not we get an invite. It's amazing that you want to rejoin the Big East and subject ourselves to whatever monetary penalties it would take to get back out. It's amazing that you want to leave a football conference that won a BCS game last year, so we can join the MAC.
 
Yankees32123 said:
These are the posts I hate. You can't discredit everything I've said because I know I've made some valid points, as have my opponents. But you actually think that sitting in the AAC waiting for football to be good so we can get a P5 invite will work? Football will take a while to get better in this conference and it will drag basketball down with it over time. Getting our football team in a conference like MAC and playing bball in the BE will keep our basketball play respectable for a few years and allow football to get better over time without killing basketball. Once that happens, we can hopefully get a P5 invite. Switching to the BE and playing football in a conference similar to the AAC like the MAC would not mean that we won't ever get a P5 invite. In fact, it might help our chances. The BE is a good conference for the time being, and probably will be way more respected than the AAC at least for the next 10 or so years. The entire restructuring of college athletics by the P5 will happen eventually, but that could be 30, 40, 50 years down the road for all we know. The P5 might have their own tournament, but that could be decades away. People are predicting an NCAA apocalypse, which will happen eventually, but who knows how or when. For the time being, we can set ourselves up in the same way as being in the AAC, but keep basketball afloat in a solid conference with teams that recruits actually want to play against. I don't want to go all in on the BE because the end goal obviously should be P5. But we won't get a P5 invite if the basketball program is not relevant 5-10 years from now. And that might happen if we stay in the AAC.
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The more you post, the more you confirm 7774's premise.
 
HuskyHawk said:
I'll explain why, because: 1. The Big East is just barely better than the American at basketball. 2. The MAC won't accept UConn for football, and is kicking out UMass. 3. It prevents any chance of joining a P5 conference 4. Joining a P5 conference is the only hope to a sustainable big time athletic program 5. despite geography, UConn shares nothing in common with the Big East schools or the MAC schools.

That's just off the top of my head. It's an article based on faulty understandings of UConn (underrates our football team by a lot...it has more players in the NFL than many P5 schools and was in a New Years Day bowl just 5 years ago) and faulty understanding of the Big East's basketball capabilities and overall attractiveness. This idea has some merit if, and only if, we learn over the next five years ago that our chances of ever getting a P5 invite are zero and if, in that time, the American underperforms the Big East at basketball by a wide margin.
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Excuse me? The past 2 National Champions for BOTH men and women have been from the American. In their first 2 years of existence.
 
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uconnfan68 said:
Excuse me? The past 2 National Champions for BOTH men and women have been from the American. In their first 2 years of existence.
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Yes, but according to some, that doesn't give us any right to think we're special.

We're just one of the gang here in the ol' 'Merican.
 
CTBasketball said:
Dude what are you talking about. Florida can pretty much fund itself from its football program and sponsorships. Also do you know how college conferences work?
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Florida does what the state politicians tells it to do. It is owned by the tax payers most of whom live in Tampa and Orlando and Sarasota.
Don't you remember when the Virginia politicians forced the ACC to take in Virginia Tech.
Florida colleges are not in some private league. The state of Florida should insist that both USF and UCF are included in the P-5.
 
lange10 said:
Check your eyesight. Big east is likely going to have 6 tourny teams this year, maybe 7 if St Johns gets it together. Marquette will be a very good team for years to come now. Big east is clearly worse than it was when us, Cuse, Pitt, Louisville were still in it but to say the current big east isn't far and away better than the AAC is just delusional. Most importantly, the big east gets RESPECT. Selection committee doesn't think anything of the AAC.
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If what is you say is true, 4 of the six or seven will lose in the first round.
 
Jimdish255 said:
Anyone who doesn'understand the importance of P5 status in today's College landscape will be in for a pleasant surprise as long as they enjoy the ride down to NIT status and the money saved from cheaper tickets and half empty buildings. We shouldn't be aspiring to that as a future for UConn athletics. And if you think it doesn't apply to all sports (most of which are doing quite well nationally thank you) it's going to be painful to remember how great we currently perform in Field Hockey, Soccer, Baseball, Track etc. Maybe Hockey could be sustained but the rest will suffer.
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For all you P5 guys I understand where your coming and wish we had a shot, but if football is driving the bus we're not um ...well positioned. You can talk about the rabbits all you want but we've read the book and know how it ends.

"Well, we ain't like that. We got a future.
We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.
If them other guys gets in jail, they can rot for all anybody cares.
But not us, George, because I...
See, I got you to look after me, but you got me to look after.
But, George, tell about how it's gonna be.
OK.
Someday...
we're gonna have us a little house and a couple of acres,
- and a cow and a pig and chickens. - Pig and chic...
We gonna live off the fat of the land, and have rabbits.
And have rabbits.
- George, tell what we got in the garden. - OK.
Then tell about the rabbits in winter, and about the stove and, uh...
- how thick the cream was on the milk. - Yeah.
- Go ahead, tell it. - Why don't you do it? You know all of it.
George, no! George, no, it's not the same when I tell it.
That's not the same.
Tell, um, what... how I get to tend the rabbits.
We're gonna have a big vegetable patch and we're gonna have a rabbit hutch.
- And down in the flat, we'lI have a... - ..little field of alfalfa for the rabbits.
- And I get to tend the rabbits. - Yeah, you get to tend the rabbits."

Steinbeck says get back to the Big East - he didn't really like traveling all over the freaking country with Charlie and our teams don't benefit from it either
 
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