We can solve Problem #1, we can't solve Problem #2

[RJScootin]

A 25 win conference tourney champion and NCAA 2nd round exit against a 1 seed will never be accepted as a "bad season" by me so stop trying. 324 schools in the country would trade places with that season.

6th place 11-7 AAC isn’t a good season.

UConn should not be one of those 324 teams you’re refering to.

Easy to understand why you’re an Ollie guy when you have such low expectations for the program.

 

[billybud]

The conference doesn't seem to matter for the UConn women...hell, they'll be champs playing wherever you would stick them. On whatever planet.

Win and recruits will come. Win and you are a major brand for the sport.

Al Davis has always been right.

Just win, baby.

 

[Uconn77Duke74]

The conference doesn't seem to matter for the UConn women...hell, they'll be champs playing wherever you would stick them. On whatever planet.

Win and recruits will come. Win and you are a major brand for the sport.

Al Davis has always been right.

Just win, baby.

We won the NC and didn't receive the recruiting boost one would expect. Not sure how much of that had to do with conference vs. Ollie. I expected to land at least one or two Studs during that window in time where Ollie was considered the hottest coach in the Country

 

[metsfan2323]

How does that end the thread?

Because Mick Cronin isn't just winning he is thriving. Cincy has actually been better without the C7. 8 straight tournament appearances.

One thing the C7 crowd chooses to ignore is the AAC is improving every year, we're gaining on them and will gain even more if UCONN hires a real coach.

 

[beakumhawks]

Why do you still post here?

Ever since trannymidgetporn.com got blocked at work I have nowhere else to go.

(You clicked on the link. Admit it. )

 

[August_West]

6th place 11-7 AAC isn’t a good season.

UConn should not be one of those 324 teams you’re refering to.

Easy to understand why you’re an Ollie guy when you have such low expectations for the program.

Are you one of the guys who wants to be Cincinatti now?


Thats a typical Cincinatti season.

 

[gtcam]

The right coach can recruit anyone to play anywhere. With the right coach, top 20 kids would be willing to play at UConn.
(Sad thing is, a while back I thought we had that guy.)

Absolutely untrue
How many top 20 players are currently playing in the AAC?
C'mon - you desire to get rid of KO is allowing you to say some over the top things
Yeah the right coach can convince any top 20 player to play in the Patriot League, Mountain West
WOW

 

[gtcam]

We can become competent again for sure with the right coach

All these folks looking to replace KO with the right coach will bring UConn back to the good old days are now searching for mere competency????
If so, no use in paying someone over $500K

 

[gtcam]

Right now the basketball team just lost the 8-9 game in the American Conference in front of 800 people at noon. Let that sink in.
Have you watched any of the day games of the P5 conferences this week? I have saved most of them. They were ghost towns. This is not limited to UConn or AAC only games.

 

[huskyrob1]

This program has 2 major problems. One of them can be solved in a matter of days. Hiring a competent hungry basketball coach. I have no idea what happened to Kevin Ollie the last couple of years. I find it incredibly sad. But he has earned every ounce of the firing if he is in fact fired.

Problem #2 cannot be solved. We play in a southern based football league. This is not a conference where a school from Connecticut can attract the type of basketball player our program once attracted. We just played a game in front of about 800 people in Orlando. Our major competitors are playing in packed crowds in Madison Square Garden (Big East, Big Ten) and Brooklyn (ACC). The atmospheres are not comparable. Our selling points of old, which won us 4 National Titles and 7 Big East Tournaments, can no longer be used.

UConn built championship teams and our brand attracting players from NYC (Kemba, Ben G, Charlie, Taliek), Boston (Shabazz, Oriakhi), Pennsylvania (Donyell, Rip), Maryland (Rudy, Boone), Maine via Wisconsin (Caron), Connecticut (Smith, Drummond) all northeast players in Big East country who were obviously allured by playing in the top TV conference in the country who played their tournament on the biggest stage MSG. We also recruited top players and sleepers nationally based on this allure. Minnesota (Khalid), South Carolina (Ray), Texas (Emeka, Jake), Georgia (Lamb, Moore) and international (Doron, Nadev, Neils).

Would we be able to attract these players to play in that atmosphere we just played in? Maybe some. Most I doubt.

We can hire a better coach. If we are lucky we may at least "Take care of business" and do what Cincinnati is doing and take the easy 20-25 wins playing in this league should get you. Perhaps we become Xavier. Perhaps we will simply look like a competent basketball team again. I'll take any of this after what I witnessed the last 2 seasons. But we will never ever ever ever be what we once were. It's impossible. And the fact that every state leader/politician/school official/coach hasn't raised bloody hell about this is their ever lasting shame.

Been saying this for a couple years now, being in the AAC hurts men's basketball a lot more than it hurts football, if at all. A P5 invite to the ACC would solve that but highly unlikely it happens.

 

[djct1999]

Absolutely untrue
How many top 20 players are currently playing in the AAC?
C'mon - you desire to get rid of KO is allowing you to say some over the top things
Yeah the right coach can convince any top 20 player to play in the Patriot League, Mountain West
WOW

Seems more like your affinity for KO is unfortunately blinding your ability to see reality. I never said any top 20 player but with the right guy with the right northeastern aau and prep ties, yes a coach could get a top 20 player to UConn even in the AAC. Truth is, as hard as you try, there is no justifying the last two years. Not just on the court but also off it. I could argue that even if we isolated the problems with KO to just one, he should be fired. KO needs to be judged as a coach and nothing else. As a coach, he is simply brutal.

 

[CL82]

Ever since trannymidgetporn.com got blocked at work I have nowhere else to go.

(You clicked on the link. Admit it. )

Uh, I don't know, maybe a Kansas forum?

(Actually Beakum is good people, not withstanding his trashing us on his home board.)

 

[kobe]

Because Mick Cronin isn't just winning he is thriving. Cincy has actually been better without the C7. 8 straight tournament appearances.

One thing the C7 crowd chooses to ignore is the AAC is improving every year, we're gaining on them and will gain even more if UCONN hires a real coach.

Cincinnati has thrived in the Missouri Valley, Great Midwest, Metro, C-USA, Big East (to lesser extent) and the American. We are used to moving around. UConn never really had to move around and coincidentally probably made the "wrong" hire right when you did move. In a pecking order of what the problem is, conference affiliation is way down the list.

 

[Mr. French]

Cincinnati has thrived in the Missouri Valley, Great Midwest, Metro, C-USA, Big East (to lesser extent) and the American. We are used to moving around. UConn never really had to move around and coincidentally probably made the "wrong" hire right when you did move. In a pecking order of what the problem is, conference affiliation is way down the list.

Other than Leonard Stokes, Kenny Satt and Nick Van Exel, you are worthless!!! Leave!!!

Jk, about the second part.

 

[RJScootin]

Are you one of the guys who wants to be Cincinatti now?


Thats a typical Cincinatti season.

My wants:

• Consistent top three in AAC
• 80% NCAA Tourney Team
• Competitive no matter who we play (no need for 20+ point blow outs)
• Recruit shooters, actual position players (not a team full of 6'7 string beans)
• Team identity (bring back that UConn D)
• Players with basketball IQ
• Coaching that that has a plan going into game and who can make adjustments

The entire season isn't just the NCAA Tourney, anything can happen in a game like we saw with 2014 UConn run. Give me an exciting, winning product and lets see where it goes.

I'm not at the point that I think the wants listed above are unrealistic (with the right coach). I know some on this board might.

 

[freescooter]

The AAC thing is nothing more than an excuse. On the football side it had 3 ranked teams including 1 in the top 10 and 1 who 4 years ago was almost Rutgerslike in its ineptitude. But they brought in the right guy and turned it around and are a consistent top 25 program. On the basketball side there are 2 top 15 programs an another in the top 25. And none are the historic leaders in basketball. UCONN Memphis Nd Temple get their acts together and this is a league that competes with anyone in the country.

 

[kobe]

Other than Leonard Stokes, Kenny Satt and Nick Van Exel, you are worthless!!! Leave!!!

Jk, about the second part.

Wow a couple of deep cuts. Most people would go Van Exel, Danny Fortson, Kenyon Martin and maybe Jason Maxiell. Well played.

 

[Lefty2one]

Yeah, I don't buy this. The right coach can make this school a consistent Top 25 team and a frequent Top 10 team.

What are the "right" B10 and ACC schools? Money isn't everything to a smart coach. They going to leave for UMiami? Boston College? Virginia Tech? Most of the "right schools" already have good coaches, which is why they're the "right schools." Duke, UNC, Michigan State, Michigan... But we were afraid we were going to lose Jim Calhoun to South Carolina in the late 1990s!

Get a good coach. Win. Both of those are possible in our league. We won a title out of it. Hope Memphis and Temple get their crap together. Hope Houston and SMU keep their crap together. Hope Marshall stays at WSU. But more important: win. Win, and the rest will take care of itself.

I wish I shared your optimism. I don't see any chance of us being a frequent Top 10 in the future unless we hit a home run with a young hire.

By "right" school I mean the big programs. A coach wouldn't leave of us Miami or VT but they would for the cream of the crop in those conferences. If Michigan State or Duke opens up, a coach would be out of his mind to stay at UConn-in-the-AAC.

 

[Title]

Because Mick Cronin isn't just winning he is thriving. Cincy has actually been better without the C7. 8 straight tournament appearances.

One thing the C7 crowd chooses to ignore is the AAC is improving every year, we're gaining on them and will gain even more if UCONN hires a real coach.

That's just absurd.

In the five years of each conference's existence, the league's finished (obviously not done this year, but the BE advantage will just be more in at the end with two 1 seeds)...

2014: Big East 5th (4 bids) - AAC 7th (4 bids)
2015: Big East 2nd (6 bids) - AAC 9th (2 bids)
2016: Big East 3rd (5 bids) - AAC 7th (4 bids)
2017: Big East 3rd (7 bids) - AAC 7th (2 bids)
2018: Big East 3rd (6 projected) - AAC 7th (3 projected)

After this year, the Big East will AVERAGE 56% of its league in the Tournament per year. If you look at the numbers, the AAC is LITERALLY closer to the MVC than the Big East. And as far as 'gaining' the only year it was even remotely close was the first year of each league.

There's a Grand Canyon gap between a Top 3 league annually and the top non major. It's embarrassing to even juxtapose, there's just nothing to hang your hat on.

kenpom.com subscription

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Yup and it only worked because of patience.

That, plus much of Cincinnati's strongest competition has steadily departed/'departed' :Syracuse, Pitt, Note Dame, West Virginia, Louisville. & Villanova, et al

It could be argued that Cronin's greatest ability is simply to have held steady while things changed significantly around him, which is no small virtue given that UConn has failed to do so

 

[Tenspro2002]

No, he pretty explicitly called 2015-16 a "bad season."

Would you prefer it if I characterized 2015-18 as "a bad 4-year stretch"?

 

[tzznandrew]

By "right" school I mean the big programs. A coach wouldn't leave of us Miami or VT but they would for the cream of the crop in those conferences. If Michigan State or Duke opens up, a coach would be out of his mind to stay at UConn-in-the-AAC.

Of course. But how often are Michigan State/Duke/UNC/Kansas/Kentucky, etc. going to open up? And in lots of those cases, there will already be alumni or people connected with the program to head over there. UNC stayed with the Smith coaching tree in all of its post-Smith hirings. I'm also not sure Michigan State, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio State would want an east coast guy. Those schools are all more tenuous than you think, and have had long down-cycles. They'll likely go with someone with midwest connections. As, probably, will UCLA and Arizona.

The creme de la creme jobs rarely open up. If we were losing someone to Duke, it would be because (a) they were awesome, and (b) they just botched the hire of a K disciple. Same with UNC.

 

[shizzle787]

I can end this thread with one name..Mick Cronin.


/endthread

LOL 13 straight years Cincy has been in the tourney; they've gotten to the Sweet 16 once. They'll lose to Nevada today.

 

[NHUConnfan]

LOL 13 straight years Cincy has been in the tourney; they've gotten to the Sweet 16 once. They'll lose to Nevada today.

Yeah, keep telling that to yourself to validate your stupid argument. Cincy has clearly demonstrated that a Top 5 team could come from the AAC. There's absolutely no reason why UConn could not be in the same position.

 

[ASweet3781]

Yeah, keep telling that to yourself to validate your stupid argument. Cincy has clearly demonstrated that a Top 5 team could come from the AAC. There's absolutely no reason why UConn could not be in the same position.

UConn's rise in athletics is inherently linked to being a member of the Big East conference. Cincinnati was a good basketball program for years in Conference USA and before that the Metro. They were basically exactly what they are now.

UConn could with the right coach be a solid and hopefully great college basketball again. There is no track record of UConn being a national power outside of the Big East brand. This is totally unchartered territory and to ignore that is being fundamentally dishonest about what we face.