POLL:Uconn to Big East good or bad?

[Johnny B]

curious to see the general view of the overall board.

[MUfan12]

I don't see how this is anything but a positive. They may not share the private, religious identity but they're as Big East as it gets. Plus losing a crap buy game is always a good thing for this STH.

I'm sure the league will protect itself in the event they leave. And even then, I don't think it'll leave much of a mark.

[source?]

Confirms the BE position  as a predator in the world of hoops, devalues the AAC, who views itself as on our level and  eventually capable of overtaking us, improves BE historical optics by adding 3 championships, gives us a strong men's basketball program, and the women's blue blood,  also improves our non-revenue sports. What's not to love?

[GB Warrior]

Maybe I'm conflating things here but since UConn is public, does the BE now have to open its books? I don't see an issue with this but just curious.

Hard to view this as anything other than a positive. Hope the men's program can regain some of its former glory.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Maybe I'm conflating things here but since UConn is public, does the BE now have to open its books? I don't see an issue with this but just curious.

Hard to view this as anything other than a positive. Hope the men's program can regain some of its former glory.

The BE doesn’t have to open it’s books but you can infer financial information about the BE due to UConns books being open. My guess is that most of it is as reported.

[GB Warrior]

The BE doesn’t have to open it’s books but you can infer financial information about the BE due to UConns books being open. My guess is that most of it is as reported.

Thanks, so exactly like GB and being able to glean general financial health and things like revenue sharing

[GooooMarquette]

Good.

The ONLY potential downside I see would be if it opened the door for the BE to continue expanding with FB teams. IMHO, that is extremely unlikely. As in 'meteor hitting your house' unlikely, after what happened a few years ago.

[Benny B]

I don’t see how anyone could think allowing UConn to retain all of their tournament shares for the first 15 years in the BE is worthy of a “Good for Big East” vote. 

[brewcity77]

Not sure. We'll see in a few years. If the league stays at 11, if UConn is earning NCAA credits, and if they are stably here to stay, then good.

I'm not convinced that will all come to pass.

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

Good.

The ONLY potential downside I see would be if it opened the door for the BE to continue expanding with FB teams. IMHO, that is extremely unlikely. As in 'meteor hitting your house' unlikely, after what happened a few years ago.

Disagree with this.
The BE made the mistake fo expanding to basically 50/50 football to non football in the past.  Given the current makeup and past mistakes this will never happen again.  Im 100% in favor of uconn and even Cincy, although that clearly creates issues with Xavier.  Never the less, 1-4 football schools is a non issue as the BE should word the by laws as we control everything and there is no football.  They go else where and no problem we retain our core 10

[brewcity77]

The more I think about this, the more it's just bad. Schools like UConn didn't make the Big East great, they made the Big East capitulate.

The only difference between UConn, Syracuse, & Pittsburgh is the latter two got lucky. UConn would've backstabbed us then and they'd do it now. Football is a cancer and any programs aspiring to D1 football should stay away. I'd prefer to keep programs like that far away from our league.

Give me Dayton, St Louis, or Fordham over UConn. They have far more in common with the current members of the league.

[The Lens]

The more I think about this, the more it's just bad. Schools like UConn didn't make the Big East great, they made the Big East capitulate.

The only difference between UConn, Syracuse, & Pittsburgh is the latter two got lucky. UConn would've backstabbed us then and they'd do it now. Football is a cancer and any programs aspiring to D1 football should stay away. I'd prefer to keep programs like that far away from our league.

Give me Dayton, St Louis, or Fordham over UConn. They have far more in common with the current members of the league.

Put down the bourbon, you're just drunk.

You're typing things you'll regret in the morning.

[WarriorFan]

Seal it, then get Syracuse or ND for all sports except football.

[D'Lo Brown]

Give me Dayton, St Louis, or Fordham over UConn. They have far more in common with the current members of the league.

You might be able to have your cake and eat it too, doesn't adding Uconn increase the likelihood of snagging another school within the next few years?

Also, what are you actually getting at. I don't know the first thing about Fordham athletics but I would be surprised if they are a basketball-first school on the level of Uconn. We are talking about athletics here, are we not? If Uconn had a Satanic Temple on campus, would they be a worse fit?

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

The more I think about this, the more it's just bad. Schools like UConn didn't make the Big East great, they made the Big East capitulate.

The only difference between UConn, Syracuse, & Pittsburgh is the latter two got lucky. UConn would've backstabbed us then and they'd do it now. Football is a cancer and any programs aspiring to D1 football should stay away. I'd prefer to keep programs like that far away from our league.

Give me Dayton, St Louis, or Fordham over UConn. They have far more in common with the current members of the league.

Brew, you’re high as hell of you think any of the schools you mentioned move the needle as much as UConn.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

The more I think about this, the more it's just bad. Schools like UConn didn't make the Big East great, they made the Big East capitulate.

The only difference between UConn, Syracuse, & Pittsburgh is the latter two got lucky. UConn would've backstabbed us then and they'd do it now. Football is a cancer and any programs aspiring to D1 football should stay away. I'd prefer to keep programs like that far away from our league.

Give me Dayton, St Louis, or Fordham over UConn. They have far more in common with the current members of the league.

Brew, I'll be honest, I don't get this at all. Is this fear that one school with football will somehow destroy the Big East from within? Or is this leftover anger at the football schools fro breaking up the old Big East? Cause there's no logical reason to prefer Dayton, SLU, or Fordham over UConn.

[MUMonster03]

Disagree with this.
The BE made the mistake fo expanding to basically 50/50 football to non football in the past.  Given the current makeup and past mistakes this will never happen again.  Im 100% in favor of uconn and even Cincy, although that clearly creates issues with Xavier.  Never the less, 1-4 football schools is a non issue as the BE should word the by laws as we control everything and there is no football.  They go else where and no problem we retain our core 10

I think a lot of other schools, like Cincy, are happy with where their football program is and only would want to move up. As conferences become larger and go to 9 game schedules it will get tougher for ND to stay independent since schools will only have 3 non con games. This all limits who we can actually add and most other schools would be adding a school for the sake of adding, where as UConn at least brings the best Women's team in the country and vastly improves the perception of the Big East for womans basketball. As for men's they become one of many Big East schools trying to reclaim past glory; MU, Georgetown, St. Johns, etc..)

[brewcity77]

Brew, I'll be honest, I don't get this at all. Is this fear that one school with football will somehow destroy the Big East from within? Or is this leftover anger at the football schools fro breaking up the old Big East? Cause there's no logical reason to prefer Dayton, SLU, or Fordham over UConn.

There's no logical reason to add any of them. I don't want Dayton, SLU, or Fordham, but a like minded university with common goals, ANY like minded university, would be preferential to a known toxin.

JFC people did we all forget what happened 6 years ago? We got out of the conference reshuffling game by getting away from programs like this. Today it's just UConn, tomorrow it's just Cincinnati, then it's just Memphis & Temple & UCF & SMU because they have decent basketball programs, then it's a 6-team Big East football league doing double round robins of their own as they audition for the ACC.

A $100M+ escalating buyout should be the first thing they agree to. The second is to dissolve their football program to D2 at best & if they ever again apply for D1 football status, they immediately have to pay $100M to each member of the league.

I'm a fan of the Big East. I'm a fan of college basketball. Those two things are fine. Mixing in D1 football is a mistake. It's an attempt to chase a bygone era, a good old days that wasn't as good as the days that have come since we got the hell away from toxic programs like UConn.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

You're worrying too much about what happened in the past and projecting that is what is going to happen in the future.  I'm sure the leadership of the conference, and its presidents, have had good talks about what it means when they add UConn.  I'm sure they have talked with UConn as well.  This isn't the 1990s when you had a bunch of members who are independents in football and need a league to join.  The circumstances are completely different.  And your proposed financial terms are absurd.  Especially when three current members already play football at the D1 level.

Sure UConn might leave down the line due to football.  That's OK. 

[brewcity77]

You're worrying too much about what happened in the past and projecting that is what is going to happen in the future.

No, people are glorifying the past and refusing to acknowledge that it might help predict the future. UConn was active and complicit in efforts to destroy the league. Just because they failed to get to the ACC while Syracuse & Pitt succeeded doesn't make them any different.

There's this sudden panic to rush to 20 games & adding a school that doesn't fit this league is a kneejerk reaction to that rush. 6 years ago the C7 recognized that bringing in BYU & Boise State was a bad idea. Football runs the farm everywhere except here. We're bringing a fox into our award winning henhouse and expecting it to all work out.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

No, people are glorifying the past and refusing to acknowledge that it might help predict the future. UConn was active and complicit in efforts to destroy the league. Just because they failed to get to the ACC while Syracuse & Pitt succeeded doesn't make them any different.

Of course it does. It means their circumstances have changed.  It means they aren't in a Power 5 football conference, with all the money that brings, and playing at the fringes of FBS football, in a terrible location for football recruiting.  They know they aren't going to succeed football wise.  They know a Power 5 invite isn't coming anytime soon, and probably ever. 

There's this sudden panic to rush to 20 games & adding a school that doesn't fit this league is a kneejerk reaction to that rush.

Panic? Why do you think there is any panic involved?  If there is one thing the BE leadership has done, it isn't panic.  Did they panic when the B10 put their conference tournament in MSG?  No, they negotiated a better contract and locked it down for another decade. Did they panic and add Dayton when Archie Miller was having success there?  No, they waited for something better to come around.

This conference leadership has been thoughtful and strong for the past six years - ever since they made the bold move to leave the OBE behind.  They deserve the benefit of the doubt that they approached this topic the same way.

6 years ago the C7 recognized that bringing in BYU & Boise State was a bad idea. Football runs the farm everywhere except here. We're bringing a fox into our award winning henhouse and expecting it to all work out.

The BE is doing nothing of the sort.  They aren't starting a football conference like they did before.  They have members who play football.  Just like they already had.  A crappy FBS program is a couple steps ahead of a good FCS one.

Basketball is the priority.  That hasn't changed.  And this opinion piece states that.

https://www.courant.com/sports/hc-sp-uconn-big-east-column-20190623-w4s4rlneqfbjpbtjqvbqalrkim-story.html

"UConn won’t chase a football national championship in our lifetime, the Power 5 ship has sailed and the university’s true brand must be re-established and strengthened. For a handful of years the stance in Storrs seemed to be that the proud basketball programs would thrive through the power of their own volition and rich history while the university pursued a the Power 5 pipe dream.

No more of that. Nothing comes at the expense of UConn basketball and nothing should. You place your most valuable pieces accordingly and let the rest fall into place from there."

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

The more I think about this, the more it's just bad. Schools like UConn didn't make the Big East great, they made the Big East capitulate.

The only difference between UConn, Syracuse, & Pittsburgh is the latter two got lucky. UConn would've backstabbed us then and they'd do it now. Football is a cancer and any programs aspiring to D1 football should stay away. I'd prefer to keep programs like that far away from our league.

Give me Dayton, St Louis, or Fordham over UConn. They have far more in common with the current members of the league.

All three of those teams are non-starters.  Fox TV execs want inventory.   Which set of games sound more attractive?

Villanova vs UConn
Georgetown vs UConn
Marquette vs UConn

Or

Villanova vs Dayton
Georgetown vs SLU
Marquette vs Fordham

[🏀]

unnatural carnal knowledge Dayton.

[GooooMarquette]

JFC people did we all forget what happened 6 years ago? We got out of the conference reshuffling game by getting away from programs like this. Today it's just UConn, tomorrow it's just Cincinnati, then it's just Memphis & Temple & UCF & SMU because they have decent basketball programs, then it's a 6-team Big East football league doing double round robins of their own as they audition for the ACC.

Which is why I said it was good...as long as UConn is not the beginning of the addition of more FB schools.

I have no idea what the future holds, so that could happen. But I think it's quite unlikely for the exact reason you stated - because of what happened 6 years ago. IMHO, Val and the crew have that front and center in their minds as they contemplate the future.

[Nukem2]

Which is why I said it was good...as long as UConn is not the beginning of the addition of more FB schools.

I have no idea what the future holds, so that could happen. But I think it's quite unlikely for the exact reason you stated - because of what happened 6 years ago. IMHO, Val and the crew have that front and center in their minds as they contemplate the future.

Yep, UConn would only be one of 11.  Which is fine as long as the 1 does not become 2,3,4,etc.