The truth of the matter is that if UConn and Memphis had played to their reputations over the past three seasons, the American probably doesn't invite Wichita.
We've been our own worst enemy, although the relegation to the American did not help.
We lost Calhoun and our conference in rapid succession. If you move Tulsa or SMU or UCF up to the American, their programs will get better. If you move a program like ours down, it makes it worse. The demotion carries a stigma - no way around that.
Ollie is a new coach and asking a new coach to take over a program like UConn wasn't fair. He hasn't done a particularly good job of managing the program nor is he terribly impressive on the bench. He needs to get better at both very quickly.
But we need to remember that he had a top-25 team coming into the season and despite the two awful losses to start the year, he never really had a chance to get better. (I think Gilbert's loss was a fatal wound.)
And then bad luck visited. We had a recruit with a dance mom of a father and we lost a recruit because he watched last season and inexplicably decided he could not get immediate playing time.
Ollie's just added a great recruiter. They need to salvage 2017 and score in 2018.
I don't think next season is going to be an easy one and I'm afraid we've squandered whatever run we could have made with Jalen Adams. But if they show some progress, get better players, we'll start moving back to where we were, even if we have to do it in this squalid armpit of a conference.
If we don't, someone call Shaka.