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Mike A. S.
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What is UConn's problem this year?! Will they turn it around in time for the big dance?
What is UConn's problem this year?! Will they turn it around in time for the big dance?
The conference is not the problem with this team.
They just got blown out by Houston, and blew significant leads to Georgetown and SMU...and lost to Wagner and Northeastern (when healthy!).
Obviously losing 3 key players to injury has hurt, and there's zero depth.
But a big part of the problem is the seniors.
Purvis is shit. Just horribly overrated on D and a succubus on offense. Turns it over way too much and takes far too many bad shots. He also can't dribble, like at all.
Brimah is basically the same player he was his freshman year. And can't stay on the court due to foul trouble. When he's on the floor uconn is actually a pretty solid team. But they're awful with him off the floor.
Adams is learning the PG spot on the fly right now, and there's no real backup PG.
And their best player tore his ACL like 8 minutes into the Oklahoma St game.
So a lot of it is injuries. And the seniors not progressing, and guys like Durham and Jackson not playing up to their hype (although jackson is starting to come on strong).
None of these have anything to do with the AAC. This was probably the greatest recruiting class in UConn history (at the time of recruitment).
UConn flat out doesn't have the booster money to be huge players in recruiting like the other blue bloods do.
The conference is not the problem with this team.
They just got blown out by Houston, and blew significant leads to Georgetown and SMU...and lost to Wagner and Northeastern (when healthy!).
Obviously losing 3 key players to injury has hurt, and there's zero depth.
But a big part of the problem is the seniors.
Purvis is shit. Just horribly overrated on D and a succubus on offense. Turns it over way too much and takes far too many bad shots. He also can't dribble, like at all.
Brimah is basically the same player he was his freshman year. And can't stay on the court due to foul trouble. When he's on the floor uconn is actually a pretty solid team. But they're awful with him off the floor.
Adams is learning the PG spot on the fly right now, and there's no real backup PG.
And their best player tore his ACL like 8 minutes into the Oklahoma St game.
So a lot of it is injuries. And the seniors not progressing, and guys like Durham and Jackson not playing up to their hype (although jackson is starting to come on strong).
None of these have anything to do with the AAC. This was probably the greatest recruiting class in UConn history (at the time of recruitment).
UConn flat out doesn't have the booster money to be huge players in recruiting like the other blue bloods do.
I would agree the conference isn't the problem with THIS particular team, but it's going to drag the program down to the point it may not ever be the same IMO. The team is travelling across country to play Tulane, Tulsa, Central Florida, Houston, SMU etc. that's not good for business.
I do understand the team has dealt with injuries this year, and if not for that they may have been a bubble team, but Calhoun had them as a top 10 program in the 90's and 2000's. I'm just not sure they'll ever get back to that point.
It's not the problem with this year's team.
But it could be a problem going forward. If they were in the ACC for example, they'd be UConn and they'd be in the ACC, similar to Louisville, except Louisville still has Pitino and UConn no longer has Calhoun. They'd be able to recruit at a top level for quite some time.
There's a danger that now that they're in the AAC and don't have Calhoun that they might slip. I think they'll be OK, but it would be in their best interest to switch.
Louisville eventually got out of Conference USA and into the Big East/ACC and it was huge for them.
You both understand UConn doesn't want to still be in the AAC right?
All this ACC realignment crap is Notre Dame and BC's fault.
Of course I understand that. Which is also part of the problem. They're in a league they don't want to be in because the other member institutions are particularly bad at running basketball programs. Like I said earlier, the only programs that are probably fine with where they currently stand is everybody but Uconn, Cincy and Temple. All those other programs are used to being in a mid major basketball conference. Uconn and Cincy are not.
And I'm of the thinking that Syracuse, and Pitt leaving probably hurt more because if they hadn't left, my guess is ND wouldn't have either. But ND didn't want to be stuck playing all the current AAC schools.
ND wouldn't commit to the BE, that's why the future waves of defection (after BC, Mia, VT) happened.
And now BC is just being petty because the state of CT tried to actually make them uphold their contractual obligations to the BE. Calhoun had zero interest in playing BC after the defection.
Well obviously ND wasn't going to commit to being a full member. They had the best of both worlds, which is now what they have in the ACC agreement. I do root for ND(2nd favorite team in basketball) and I do miss playing the likes of Nova, Georgetown and WVU and for sure the old Big East tournament. But being able to have them play Duke, & UNC yearly makes up for that. Uconn doesn't have that, which I think could be a problem moving forward, just beyond this year.
This is probably UConn's last hurrah at FB. If they don't turn it around, they very well could move FB to 1AA, or go independent (like UMass and just play a bunch of teams that pay them money to get their brains beat in) and move to the Big East.
Doesn't really solve the University's issues entirely, but it's good for basketball.
I would love to see Uconn move to the Big East in basketball.
And I won't pretend to know the financials or issues at Uconn, but did the University need football to become an FBS type of program in the first place?
My guess is they saw the big money train coming in and wanted to get on it.
Clearly it hasn't worked out the way they'd hoped.
but i don't think anyone foresaw the type of realignment we've seen so far in FB.
FBS is a football term so yes they would need FB for that. Football was about increasing revenues and expanding the national brand.
But by 2019/2020 they may be back to 1AA right back where they started 20 years ago.
Right, there was no way of knowing this was type of realignment going to happen. Just really sucks for what happened to the basketball program.
The AAC could have been and still could be decent.
They've just had horrible fortune. Memphis and Josh Pastner and Larry Brown and SMU both miserably failed when the upside was big. Cincy is a good program. Temple is solid if unspectacular.
But UConn belongs in a better conference. They're UConn!
I would love to see them back in the Big East. DePaul can take a hike. They're absolutely worthless...
Again, i don't think the AAC has had anything to do with the failures of the program the last 3 years. They've had some really strong recruits come here during their time in the AAC (Hamilton, Adams, the highly ranked 2016 class). They are just aren't putting it together. Perhaps there will be long term effects, but they still have more titles than anyone else since 99. And a coach who already has a NC of his own.