BE4evah
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RE: UConn's membership in AAC is unsustainable
(04-18-2014 10:06 AM)orangefan Wrote: (04-18-2014 08:39 AM)BE4evah Wrote: (04-18-2014 07:20 AM)orangefan Wrote: (04-18-2014 12:58 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote: (04-18-2014 12:26 AM)perimeterpost Wrote: I love the title of this thread "UConn's membership is AAC is unsustainable". Describing the situation as "unsustainable" as if UConn is just so awesome there's no way possible that they can be held down in a miserable conference like the AAC. It's laugh out loud funny.
You've misread the title. Read the initial post, which explains it.
It has nothing to do with UConn being too good for the AAC. It has to do with them being isolated in the extreme northeast corner of the conference, facing enormous travel distances to the rest of the members of the conference.
Their travel situation is very similar to the one faced by West Virginia, whose AD has been very vocal about the negative effect of the travel distances on their student athletes in non-revenue sports especially. That's what's unsustainable in the long run.
WVU is already doing what I have suggested UConn could do, i.e., minimize the number of team sports that it plays in the conference. WVU plays only football, baseball, men's and women's basketball, women's soccer and women's volleyball as team sports in the B12. It sponsors an NCAA minimum 7 men's sports, and only competes in 5 of those in the B12 (also an NCAA minimum to be counted as a full member of the conference). Even WVU could reduce further by moving one women's team sport to another conference as an affiliate member.
This is the sanest response yet. Let's face it, the Temple model of cutting sports is more in line with what non power schools will do in reaction to the P5 hogging all the cash.
TV revenue, bowl payouts, even apparel agreements! Look at Louisville's $8m a year contract!
For schools like WVU that make even more than Uconn, based on its geographic isolation and travel burdens, prudence in sponsoring certain sports and then placement of those sports in more geographic favorable conferences, is what Uconn will end up doing.
I'm not sure if it can be done, but what about cut sports, or if you want to keep them minimize travel by:
Uconn men's bb: AAC
Football: AAC
Baseball: AAC
Men's and women's outdoor and indoor Track and Field: AAC
Golf: AAC
8 sports in AAC
Big East for soccer, volleyball, men's/women's swimming, volleyball, field hockey, softball, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's tennis, rowing, lacrosse
13 in Big East
As it is now, lacrosse and field hockey are already in the Big East.
I posted the NCAA rule before, but basically, UConn must play 5 men's and 5 women's sports in the AAC, including football, men's and women's basketball and one other women's teams sport. The other AAC sports in which it competes can be non-team sports in which there is no regular season championship - so men's and women's x-country, indoor track, outdoor track, swimming, and golf could get you 10, and you only need 6.
I should add, UConn is fortunate to be located in an area with a large number of D1 schools. Connecticut has 7 D1 schools, Rhode Island -4, Massachusetts - 7, New York State - 22, and New Jersey - 8. All of these schools are within a 3 hour bus ride of UConn. The advantage is that UConn's entire OOC schedule can be constructed of nearby opponents. In basketball, for instance, UConn could easily schedule OOC home and homes with BC, St. John's, Providence, Rutgers or UMass. In non-revenue sports, the available road games are even more plentiful because you don't need to find P5 level opponents. That takes a large part of the sting out of the travel requirements of being in a spread out conference.
UConn's options are far greater than Syracuse's, for instance, which only has 8 or 9 schools within 3 hours, and only 3 within 90 minutes. UMaine (where I went to grad school) has zero (0) potential opponents with in 3 hours (UNH is just over 3 hours) and they manage sponsor 18 D1 sports, send the baseball and softball teams to Florida for weeks at a time, bus teams four hours to Boston all the time, and fly teams to play conference and OOC games.
The benefit of such a plan is that in some of the sports that Uconn would keep in the AAC (track and field) compete more in meets than one on one.
So of Uconn's 22 sports, ice hockey, lacrosse, field hockey are already in the Big East (or soon to be Hockey East for ice hockey).
Would this work?
Keep in the AAC:
men:
basketball, football, golf, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field
women:
women's basketball, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, rowing, swimming
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