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UConn Transition To Big East

New story from Borges:
"David Benedict spent 21/2 hours on a conference call with the American Athletic Conference finance committee. There was a lot on the agenda, so much that Benedict, the committee chairman, suggested they arrive early to the AAC’s football media day in Newport, R.I. in a couple of weeks to get in some more work........Benedict is the type of person who likes to be as direct and transparent as possible with people. However, he was harboring a secret that no one at the AAC, and only a very small circle of people at UConn, knew. A secret that would make his involvement with the AAC finance committee moot. "

 
Is this more of the back to the Big East move or the Dan Hurley effect ?..... I'd say it's probably a lot to do with both....:D / :D

 
Either way, it's good news for the athletic department. I would also suggest a 3rd factor which is that there are very high hopes for both teams next year. The UConn women are a clearcut top 3 team and national championship contender with South Carolina and Baylor, while the men have a very good shot at entering the top 25 at some point next season, and have one of the deepest men's teams (particularly in big men) in recent memory.

Both teams finished strong last year. The men were 8-2 in last 10 despite being without 2 starters, while the women were showing immense improvement late in the season. I was extremely impressed with how Makurat, ONO and Griffin played later in the year. For the men, the surprises were Whaley and the much improved guard play, and that they stayed competitive on defense and on the boards while fielding 3 and 4 guard lineups due to the shortage of healthy bigs.
 
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I don't consider the women as part of this equation at all for 2 reasons. They've always been a constant through the whole time in the AAC as a top 5 team, plus anyone with a job and the internet has been able to afford/buy WBB season tix if they choose to do so. Because WBB season tix don't come with the mandatory "donation" that MBB does.

MBB season tix, in my case, as of 2019 required an annual $2400 "extortion payment " in a so-called gender specific fee that they like to say is a "donation" .....( what happen to title 9 and equality for donors ? ) Plus it's over a $1000 for the actual tix ....for the same seats that I've been dishing out for, at both spots, since the time Gampel opened.....

A homeless guy can probably scrounge up enough money to be a Women's fan/ season tix holder. It can cost as cheap as $10 a game and no donation. Hell the high end/ best seat in the house at Gampel or XL only cost $208 for the whole year for WBB & no "extortion" charge......

So it's always been easy as hell on your pocket to be a front runner fan of the WBB team ...... Not so much for the men, which between KO and the losing had turned Gampel and the XL into a morgue at the same time Uconn decided to destroy it's MBB season tix base with forced donations and taking away priority points of tix holders that had paid on them for years, as part of the equation..... But I'm glad to see ticket buying Uconn fans ready to man up again for the BE return. (especially with the COVID-19 concerns)
 
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Transition Back to Big East Fires Up Former Husky Marcus Williams


" Most fans will come to UConn’s defense and blame two things for UConn’s downfall these last 5 years; The AAC and Kevin Ollie. Thankfully for everyone who cares about college basketball and UConn, those now don’t involve UConn..."

Marcus had a great understanding of the difficulty of recruiting.........
.“No disrespect to the AAC, but kids don’t want to go to UConn to play in that conference. UConn has always matched talent and grit while playing in the Big East. They were able to recruit anyone, I think the recruitment will take a leap due to the conference again.”....For anyone choosing to question the hire of Dan Hurley, Marcus adds, he fits the UConn mold very well. “Dan is a very tough guy. I think his pedigree matches the history of what UConn has brought to the table. Once they can get certain recruits back in the system, I think Dan will then have a fair shot to have the program rolling like it once was.”

UConn landed the #20 class in the country according to 247, and expect that to improve as time goes on.
 
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What's odd about the "new Big East" is that it does have some similarities to the geographically spread out AAC. While 6 of the new Big East teams were "old Big East"- UConn, Georgetown, St. John's, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall- core eastern schools- look at the other teams now in the conference:

Creighton- in Omaha, Nebraska
Butler- in Indiana
Marquette- in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Xavier- in Cincinnati, Ohio
DePaul- in Chicago, Illinois

The 5 teams listed above all bring something whether it's a good tradition/great venue in the cases of DePaul, Marquette and Xavier or a great recent tradition of basketball in Creighton and Butler. But while UConn might be saving something on travel costs as compared to the AAC, the travel is much more significant than the "old Big East" which also included Syracuse and BC.
 
“Dan is a very tough guy. I think his pedigree matches the history of what UConn has brought to the table. Once they can get certain recruits back in the system, I think Dan will then have a fair shot to have the program rolling like it once was."

I agree with this comment by Marcus Williams in particular. Dan Hurley quickly rebuilt programs at Wagner and Rhode Island and has done the same at UConn. One can argue that Hurley's won-loss record as a college coach is extremely misleading because he has cleaned up major messes at 3 schools and only after 2 seasons at each had his type of team. With the exception of Wagner where there was a massive turnaround in his second season.

I wasn't a big fan of Hurley's before he came to UConn, but now that I have seen what he has done in his 2 full years with the program I fully believe it's only a matter of time before UConn is again a national power and perennial Final 4 contender. It could start as soon as this upcoming season. He is worth what he is being paid and I hope he stays 25 plus years like Calhoun. If he does there will be more national championships.
 
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What's odd about the "new Big East" is that it does have some similarities to the geographically spread out AAC. While 6 of the new Big East teams were "old Big East"- UConn, Georgetown, St. John's, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall- core eastern schools- look at the other teams now in the conference:

Creighton- in Omaha, Nebraska
Butler- in Indiana
Marquette- in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Xavier- in Cincinnati, Ohio
DePaul- in Chicago, Illinois

The 5 teams listed above all bring something whether it's a good tradition/great venue in the cases of DePaul, Marquette and Xavier or a great recent tradition of basketball in Creighton and Butler. But while UConn might be saving something on travel costs as compared to the AAC, the travel is much more significant than the "old Big East" which also included Syracuse and BC.
Very true on the NBE being a little more west (one of the issues I've mentioned in the past ).....but travel wise Nebraska is the only new BE state that Uconn has to visit.... Xavier - Cincy is a same city trade off and Butler replaces Notre Dame in Indiana from the OBE.......The big winner is the 5 east coast schools ( half the BE...3-4 could be bus trips) to only one in the AAC (Temple)...which will really help with whatever Olympic sports (are left)
 
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Another effect of the Big East:
Providence athletic director Bob Driscoll. “With UConn coming back into the conference, we’re going to be playing our women’s basketball Big East championships at Mohegan Sun moving forward,” he told the Westerly Sun. The Big East declined to officially confirm it but said it is “in the process of evaluating venues for future Women’s Basketball Tournament sites,” and has “interest in Mohegan Sun Arena.”

Report: Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament moving to Mohegan Sun

P.S. ... from Westerly Sun: Providence College men’s basketball team, options on the table include playing games on-campus at Alumni Hall and Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena in the event that taking the court at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center proves not to be a feasible option for the 2020... (the Dunk probably can’t open it until the new year do to Covid-19 issues)
 
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What's odd about the "new Big East" is that it does have some similarities to the geographically spread out AAC. While 6 of the new Big East teams were "old Big East"- UConn, Georgetown, St. John's, Providence, Villanova and Seton Hall- core eastern schools- look at the other teams now in the conference:

Creighton- in Omaha, Nebraska
Butler- in Indiana
Marquette- in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Xavier- in Cincinnati, Ohio
DePaul- in Chicago, Illinois

The 5 teams listed above all bring something whether it's a good tradition/great venue in the cases of DePaul, Marquette and Xavier or a great recent tradition of basketball in Creighton and Butler. But while UConn might be saving something on travel costs as compared to the AAC, the travel is much more significant than the "old Big East" which also included Syracuse and BC.
Sounds like the Big East to Creighton is what the AAC was to Uconn:

" Travel was a big issue for UConn in the American, with most of its teams far south and west. Creighton, in Omaha, Neb., will be the Huskies’ longest conference trip, more than 1,200 miles, in the Big East. Creighton is the team with the heaviest travel burden, with six of 10 schools on the East Coast, more than 1,000 miles away, and its closest rivals, DePaul and Marquette, more than 400, but the Big East experience and cultural fit has been more than worth going the extra miles

 
.The big winner is the 5 east coast schools ( half the BE...3-4 could be bus trips) to only one in the AAC (Temple)...which will really help with whatever Olympic sports (are left)
As I had mention in the past the biggest elephant in the room, especially with what's going on right now in the country right now with Covid-19 .......is non-revenue, non ticketed, non-mandatory donation sports that don't bring in squat...Football more so and basketball bring in millions of $$ in mandatory donations and extra ticket fees ( $5 surcharge on every FB ticket ) that aren't even counted in the book keeping of these high profile sports. The bigger problem for the AD, because the #'s never change, even when they win, is the other/Olympic sports: $2.8 mil revenue, $25.8 mil expenses = net loss $23 million for the last fiscal year.

from the Courant:
" UConn’s 24 varsity sports are eight more than required by the NCAA to maintain Division I status and six more than the average Big East school......By comparison, Central Florida, which has one of the largest enrollments in the nation at 69,000, more than twice UConn’s student body, has the minimum 16 varsity sports"
" The golf and track alumni have been working to raise money in hopes of saving those programs, which are thought to be in danger. The track alumni’s website says it raised $1.5 million in one week, with long-term pledges aimed at keeping the program operating for five years.....But whether efforts like these can be long-term solutions is the question......"

 
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I don't think tears will be shed if you cut:

Men's Cross Country
Men's Golf
Women's Cross Country
Women's Rowing (there is no men's rowing)
Women's Lacrosse (there is no men's lacrosse)

There you go Dave Benedict. Now down to a reasonable 19 sports.
 
I don't think tears will be shed if you cut:

Men's Cross Country
Men's Golf
Women's Cross Country
Women's Rowing (there is no men's rowing)
Women's Lacrosse (there is no men's lacrosse)

There you go Dave Benedict. Now down to a reasonable 19 sports.
I agree, but you know the one problem with that, counselor. Per federal law the numbers of schollies have to match, ie Title IX
I would probably sub mens & womens swimming in your list for the LAX and rowing, since it's not a high involement sport for BE schools anyway.

updated:

BE-sports-uconn-cuts.jpg
 
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To me, swimming is a more significant sport than rowing is. I don't know what the fascination is with rowing as a sport, although Lori Loughlin and her husband are going to jail because they paid some fraudster $500,000 to concoct evidence that their daughter was an elite champion rower, when she never picked up an oar in her life. USC believed the fraudulent evidence and accepted the girl into USC. Everything else being equal, rowing is what should be cut.
 
To me, swimming is a more significant sport than rowing is. I don't know what the fascination is with rowing as a sport.
Me either... cut them both, who would really notice anyway, LOL!.... but again that Title IX thing.
 
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I am trying to understand what caused so many schools including UConn to add all these puff nonrevenue sports. I think it's part of this culture of puffing up resumes - exactly what was at the core of the college cheating scandal. Something is VERY wrong with our society when someone successfully bribes their way into USC with $500,000 paid to fraudulently present and recruit a kid as elite in the sport of rowing. This doesn't happen if the sport of rowing isn't a varsity sport. What is perpetuated is the same fraud- that the kid earned a varsity spot on the rowing team. Had the fraud not been exposed, Loughlin's kid gets to put on her resume that she was a member of varsity rowing team even though she never had a single rowing competition in her life. I suspect it's much easier to target these non revenue sports for fraudulent recruiting and resume stuffing because, (1) they don't make any revenue, (2) nobody goes to the competitions or cares who is competing, (3) nobody gives a shit about these sports or checks the box scores on them. Yet they still look good on resumes in certain elitist circles.

Do you think a kid could have bribed his way into UConn saying he was a top basketball recruit or passed himself off as having been recruited by UConn? It would never happen. The fan base wouldn't allow such a fraud to happen, and it's very unlikely some kid would even dare to put on their resume that they were on UConn's basketball team or were recruited. It's an impossible fraud to pull off.

These puff sports have long existed on club and intramural levels without the school's name attached. Unfortunately our culture promotes the idea that being a skilled rower is worth something and the people who are entitled take advantage of this to try and get something for their kids that the kids don't deserve. Lori Loughlin is lucky I am not sentencing judge in her case because I would be sending her to prison for a long time.
 
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. This doesn't happen if the sport of rowing isn't a varsity sport.
To make a long story short, you can blame this on title IX more than anything. . As you mentioned .....correct Uconn has " Women's Rowing (there is no men's rowing)" and ....Schools " add all these puff nonrevenue (WOMEN's ) sports " ..... but mainly to to satisfy title IX requirements.

I just counted it looks like there are 48 gals on Uconn's womens rowing team. Get rid of gals rowing and and the Fed's make you find 48 on men's teams, which would take knocking out the men's swimming (27), Men's cross country(16) and about half the Men's tennis teams (8) just to break even.
 
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Do you really need to have 48 women on a rowing team? How about 20 and get them some smaller boats? Sounds like a plan to me that would have balanced things out. In reality, you don't need that many girls on a rowing team nor does UConn need rowing as a sport.

I understand the Title IX issues but like I said some of these sports just don't need to be varsity sports. They can be offered as club or intramural sports. A buddy of mine participated in fencing in college. It was a club sport- as it should be. Sports like rowing and cross country in my mind have a similar status to fencing. They shouldn't be varsity sports in order to satisfy the desire to pad resumes. Although I think some colleges actually do have varsity fencing teams.

This gets into a bigger discussion on Olympic sports and some people have strong opinions. I was in Canada 10 years ago when the Winter Olympics were being held there and everywhere I went curling was being shown on TV. I remarked to some Canadian friends that curling was getting way too much TV coverage and it shouldn't even be a winter sport. They were upset to hear this, but I would rather watch bobsled or luge or snowboarding or even women's ice skating. But if you have curling as an Olympic sport then shuffleboard should also be an Olympic summer sport because all curling is, is shuffleboard on ice.

I also heard about bowling and badminton being discussed as Olympic sports. I would take bowling over badminton but neither one should be an Olympic sport. These sports just don't really deserve a showcase like that.
 
Like I said title IX is the big cause on all of this .....Uconn women's hockey has had a full scholarship team in Hockey East since 2002, while the men were relegated to a pay to play model ( no schollies) in Atlantic Hockey until the upgrade in 2014. No one cared then or now about the women's team or attended games like alot of these fluff scholarship sports. But schools are forced to run them because of Title IX. ....Even though it should of been the opposite with the Uconn men's hockey team becoming one of the top draws attendance wise in HE once they moved up..... So I agree you don't need rowing or a bunch of these fluff sports... except because of the 16 sport NCAA D-1 requirement and evening up the schollies.

There are really only about 5 or 6 sports that bring in all the revenue for Uconn. M & W Hoops, Football, men's Soccer and men's Ice hockey. And Baseball with some games the past few years at Dunkin Donut$ park and now with it's new stadium Elliot Ballpark, finally going to a ticketing mode.

One of the big factors that's lost by hack writers like Forde and his Uconn FB team hit piece... is that the FB team's CBS TV deal is partially because of IMG and them protecting their investment/ contract with Uconn... That's $96 mil that Uconn receives from IMG specifically because of the high visibility / revenue sports. (where is that money on the spread sheets ?)

" (IMG) will continue to produce coach’s shows for the school’s football, basketball and men’s ice hockey teams." and "The (FB) agreement between CBS Sports and UConn Athletics was facilitated by Learfield IMG College, the university’s athletics multimedia rights holder. UCONN Sports Properties is the Learfield IMG College Hartford-based team that exclusively represents the Huskies and works alongside Benedict on all aspects of the rights relationship."

Same thing with w/ Nike and it's Uconn $32.5 mil deal. I'm sure they could care less about Uconn having a rowing team, but they love when their brand is all over the BB and FB teams on national TV. And compared to what the FB & BB teams bring in for donations & FIT charges, the fluff sports don't even register.... With the way Uconn cooks the books on inflated scholarship costs for sports teams and then leaving out all the donation$ brought in, only by high profile sports by way of forced donations, it's millions more that never see a spread sheet and make the loses look worse than they are for the revenue producing sports .

That donation money for years has been set up as another entity..... the old UCADF, which I think is now called the Uconn Foundation. But without the 3-4 main sports, they would probably go broke. So I'm sure the Foundation wouldn't shed any tears without a rowing team either.
 
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Rivals old and new: Providence College, Ed Cooley return to UConn men’s schedule as a familiar yet revamped Big East foe......

https://outline.com/z7fdhy

"Providence College was bearing down on an NCAA bid, and needed that 20th win.
“We had won seven out of eight down the stretch,” Providence coach Ed Cooley said. “Had we won that game, I thought we would have got into the NCAA Tournament. I can remember like it was yesterday. Kris Dunn had a shot that he passed up, threw it to LaDontae Henton that got blocked on the baseline [by DeAndre Daniels].”.....The game went to OT, where UConn prevailed, 63-59, in what would be the Huskies’ last game in the old Big East Conference, March 9, 2013.... Ancient New England rivals UConn and Providence, only about 50 miles apart, after any number of such epic battles parted ways. "
 
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Regarding Providence, I think another article you or someone else posted indicated that they may need to play some or all of their games at Mohegan Sun. Due to the unavailability of Dunkin Donuts arena. If true, this means that UConn would essentially have a home and home series with PC this year. That would be fun. Also, Mohegan Sun is only a 45 minute drive and as such is closer for me than Hartford and Storrs.
 
Another effect of the Big East:
from the Westerly Sun. : Providence College men’s basketball team, options on the table include playing games on-campus at Alumni Hall and Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena in the event that taking the court at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center proves not to be a feasible option for the 2020... (the Dunk probably can’t open it until the new year do to Covid-19 issues)
 
I agree, but you know the one problem with that, counselor. Per federal law the numbers of schollies have to match, ie Title IX
I would probably sub mens & womens swimming in your list for the LAX and rowing, since it's not a high involement sport for BE schools anyway.
excerpts:
* Cut men’s golf or tennis?....Well, neither program costs a whole lot to run, at least compared to the school’s other athletic programs.
* Cut baseball?...Perhaps you haven’t heard of Elliot Ballpark, UConn’s sparkling new baseball facility that was slated to open this spring before COVID-19 hit.
* Cut men’s soccer?......There’s a new, 4,000-seat soccer stadium slated to open in August. Plus, the program is popular on campus, and also with the Big East.
* Cut football?......Well, there is that 40,000-seat stadium in East Hartford. And the fact that the program helps bring in other dollars through its contracts with IMG, Nike, CBS Sports Network, etc.
* Cut women’s tennis or rowing or volleyball?......Hello, Title IX.

"Getting into a guessing game seems a bit insensitive, but it’s worth noting that swimming and diving programs seem to be the first on the chopping block when schools started cutting programs over the past month. UConn fields both men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams
:......Then there’s this: That $42.2 million subsidy is a bit misleading. Some $18 million of that goes right back to the university through scholarships. If UConn was to charge the athletics department a lower rate on out-of-state scholarships — bringing their value a bit closer to in-state grants — that could save, say, $5 million right there. Many schools already do this (some don’t even charge their sports programs for scholarships).
That’s just bookkeeping, you say? Well, then it also means UConn’s subsidy is closer to $20 million, not the $40 million figure some national sportswriters are all-too eager to write about. "

The New Haven Register's Dave Borges makes some of the same points I've already made in 2 threads, while also calling out that Louisville fan boy/ hack writer Pat Forde like I did too...

FULL READ...


And if so, as I posted above:
 
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I feel terrible for those swimmer kids. They may not have seen this coming. Even if they did, it would really suck to be recruited to college to swim, only to learn that the sport has been eliminated by the school. Hopefully, these kids can transfer if they want and resume their swimming careers at other schools.

On the other hand, I have wondered whether swimming in various pools and going into sweaty lockerrooms is something I would want to be doing right now. My condominium just opened its swimming pool last week, and while I am typically an avid and above average swimmer, I have and probably will avoid that swimming pool, at least for a while. Hopefully they will be able to resume sports this fall, but I am wondering about it.
 
Uconn BOT is meeting this morning...bunch of twitter updates:





 
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To make a long story short, you can blame this on title IX more than anything. . As you mentioned .....correct Uconn has " Women's Rowing (there is no men's rowing)" and ....Schools " add all these puff nonrevenue (WOMEN's ) sports " ..... but mainly to to satisfy title IX requirements.

I just counted it looks like there are 48 gals on Uconn's womens rowing team. Get rid of gals rowing and and the Fed's make you find 48 on men's teams, which would take knocking out the men's swimming (27), Men's cross country(16) and about half the Men's tennis teams (8) just to break even.
I guess rowing doesn't cause as big a hit to men's sports as I thought since only 14 are on scholly. This is similar to NCAA baseball that only allows 11.7 schollies on a 35 man team.




 
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Recap.....men's golf & women's tennis saved according to:




No women's sports losses from a BIG EAST perspective (Gals rowing was in the CAA). Total roster count loss from last year teams are 52 men's student- athletes and 48 women's

BE-sports-uconn-cuts.jpg
 
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"With these programs eliminated, UConn will reduce its total number of sponsored sports from 24 — one of the highest totals in Division I and six more than the Big East average of 18 — to 20. The NCAA requires Division I schools to have a minimum of 16 sports."

"Affected programs are men's cross country, women's rowing, men's swimming & diving and men's tennis. The move affects 124 student-athletes.The overall plan is estimated to realize a savings of approximately $10 million annually....Average sports sponsorship among BIG EAST institutions is 18 while schools playing in the American Athletic Conference sponsor an average of 17 "
 
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Where's the Pat Forde article on Michigan's mismanagement ? I guess even though they make $54 mil a year in TV payouts alone, Warde isn't a rock star anymore, LOL !

 
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