Sigh, the annual UCONN needs to go back to the Big East talk has begun again

How different might the national perception of the Big 12 be if Texas were potent in the sports that really count? How much more favorably might the AAC be viewed if the Connecticut men were still a national basketball superpower?

TU gets another shot at UConn on Thursday, and TU will be disappointed if there isn’t a victory. TU and every other AAC-member university also should be disappointed if Connecticut doesn’t restore itself as being a significant school in men’s basketball.

TU paid $2.5 million to join the American, and the fair expectation was that the Huskies of 2018 would resemble the Huskies of 2014.

The sad reality: Except for the uniforms, there is no resemblance whatsoever.

What a wierdo. They’ve made probly $10 mill more since in the AAC than they would have in ConfUSA. And no school joins a conf because another school is good at one sport, which is what he is implying.

“Even on chartered planes, this is an excessive amount of air travel, especially for a collection of very tall individuals. Travel fatigue is real, and it probably is not an accident that UConn is a horrific 1-11 in games played at Tulsa, Houston, and SMU since joining the American”

If you think the anti-athletic faculty at UH is bad, imagine what it’s like at a school like Tulsa who has more in common with Rice than they do with UH.

It’s funny that the women don’t seem to have the same problem the men have. Their baseball team is also doing quite well in the AAC.

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Few thoughts on UConn to BE.

Big East probably leaves them as an independent in FB.
That’s a tough road.

Con USA $ not worth the travel.

MAC wont take football only members anymore without hoop as an announced policy. They gave UMass the boot for that reason.

(They do allow it for other sports
Missouri, Old Dominion are in the MAC for wrestling. App State- field hockey, WVU-soccer, Evansville-mens swimming- many more.)

If I’m St Johns, Providence, Seton Hall, etc- No way in hell I want a public school in fairly close proximity like UConn in BE.

I think if they go BE, they bite the bullet and drop down to FCS in football. They could join the Colonial Athletic Association and play other Big East basketball schools there. They’d probably do well down there and could end up one of the top schools in that subdivision.

But, and what the author doesn’t realize, leaving now would be giving up on trying to get to a P5. UCONN’s goal isn’t the Big East…it’s the B1G, ACC, or Big 12. To get there, they have to have a strong football program and they can’t do it without being in the AAC. As youn mentioned, their other FBS choices are limited and much worse than what it currently has.

I relate to them…we’re in the same boat in a lot of ways, but there’s still time to get better and get to where we need to be. Got about 3-5 years to get things in order before the next round.

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If they go back to the BE for BB purposes, they need to find a cheating coach like Calhoun to get them to the top !!

Larry Brown is available !!

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They are doing the same thing we did after the fall of the SWC. They are whining about their lot in life and dreaming of what it would be like to play teams of “their stature”, all the while being mediocre to bad in the sports that matter.

UConn, let me give you some advice from a school that did that for 10 years, it doesn’t work. All you do is fall further and further behind.

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Agreed. Admin will hopefully ignore the cries from the boosters/fans, fire Ollie, and get back to being good.

Again, their women’s team hasn’t suffered at all so I don’t believe their arguments. They’ve also continued to draw in top rated talent; Ollie just can’t develop them once they get there.

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I sent them an email and the UConn Boneyard added a link to coogfans.

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https://twitter.com/AmoreCourant/status/968620641862733824
https://twitter.com/Aaron_Torres/status/968625797358542848

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UConn is going through the same thing that we went through after the fall of the SWC. We thought we were much better than the sandbox we were playing in and then the worst thing happened, nobody game a darn anymore. We thought we deserved to be in the Big 12 because of 5 final fours, 4 cotton bowls, a Lombardi and a Heisman. The fan base basically took the stance of “wake me when you are playing against the big boys again, until then I will go play golf”.

We spent 10 years in a state of complete apathy and our football and basketball programs fell to a point of being (combined) the worst two programs in the country. UConn is well on the way to doing the same thing we did.

During our 10 year lost weekend, TCU got busy and started building. Consequently they are in the Big 12 and we are not. We started waking up in 2006 and then we got busy in 2008 when RK took over. In the 10 years of RK, we have a peach bowl, and Outland, numerous 1st round draft picks in football, a new football stadium, an indoor football practice facility, a basketball practice facility and now we have a basketball program that is legit again. Next year we get a new basketball arena. Our track team is as good as it has ever been. Baseball is a Omaha contender every year. We might not be at our historical heights for any particular sport, but across all sports we are almost as good as we have ever been.

In a group that I am very fond of, they have a saying “you are the problem and you are the solution”. That is pretty applicable to everything in life. So hey UConn, you are the problem and you are the solution. Your current state is of your own doing but if you get busy and start building, good things can happen. It is all on you, just like it was with us when we found ourselves in the same situation.

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If Uconn wasn’t sucking we would be 6th best and if Memphis wasn’t at a low point as well we would be 5th. Erase SMU and UCF’s injuries as well and the AAC is one of the best conferences in the nation.

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UConn’s situation is nowhere near our situation post SWC, nowhere near.

UConn’s uncertainty comes from the NCAA investigation into Kevin Ollie’s program. There are $10 million reasons that they won’t fire him, especially at a school that doesn’t have any significant football revenue. Could the NCAA give the university cause to fire Ollie without penalty? Don’t be surprised if UConn’s administration waits to find out.


2) What’s the reality at Memphis?

Memphis-based college basketball reporter Gary Parrish tossed a bombshell out on Tuesday night that Memphis is “seriously considering” firing Tubby Smith and replacing him with Penny Hardaway. The report added the juicy detail that Penny has actively started putting together a staff, and would target veteran coach Larry Brown as an assistant. (Don’t expect that to happen.) The Memphis president, Dr. David Rudd, fanned the flames by giving Smith the dreaded “evaluate the program at the end of the year” status update, according to the Commercial-Appeal.

Could this work? Well, history says former stars tend to flop. Clyde Drexler did famously at Houston. Ollie worked out at UConn, until he didn’t. Chris Mullin is flailing at St. John’s. And Patrick Ewing has gotten off to a tepid start at Georgetown.

What makes Hardaway different is that he has far more recruiting ties than the others. Parrish mentions ties to three top-40 players he could likely lure to Memphis from coaching AAU. But Hardaway is a risk, and it’s exacerbated by needing to pay Smith $10 million to leave.
This feels like an American Idol hire more than the move of a strong and stable administration. And it also feels like it’s going to happen.

That is oh so true. UH was on top of the football world. Our fall was from a long way up. UCONN has never been “up” so their fall was like rolling off a curb.

Ask any drunk, falling off a curb hurts too.

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