(04-01-2018 09:54 AM)Bogg Wrote:  

(03-31-2018 07:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  They have virtually no appeal to the ACC, which would on the surface seem to be their best hope for a P5 invite. Too many schools in the ACC would revolt if they were invited, and I doubt those who might be inclined to vote for them would fight very hard on their behalf.

That good fan base went into witness protection this year in both football and basketball. They drew less than 15K for ECU, and while it's tempting to blame that on their poor record it was only the third game of the season, when it wasn't yet clear how bad both clubs would be. But even if it was clear, that's pretty lousy fan support. In the B1G, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, Maryland and Rutgers were pretty weak, but they still managed collectively to average 43K fans. UConn gives the B1G nothing of value it doesn't already have enough of.

UConn had a great run for about 16 years in hoops. That was at the height of the Big East's power in basketball. The Huskies have yet to prove they can sustain that without the allure of the BE for recruits. It will be to their great credit if they can get back to those heights, but even then I don't know if it would be enough to overcome their perceived weakness in football.

Right now, they are the longest of longshots for the P5, and probably not in the top 6-8 choices to get promoted. They have a big hill to climb.

I mean, your logic is off (we saw in the last round of Big 12 expansion discussion that the "top four" in terms of merit are BYU, Houston, Cincy, and UConn, in whichever order geography dictates) but the end result isn't far off - ESPN overpaid for it's big-money properties in the last round of negotiations and doesn't intend to allow the club to expand any further. It's why they threatened the Big 12 into surrendering their pro-rata functionally for free.

As such, in my opinion your argument is actually one of the strongest arguments in favor of UConn settling into the Big East. They're at the point where they're selecting their long-term home, and their choices are probably just the AAC, Big East, or hoping for an invite to a picked-over Big 12 after the top brands leave.

At a certain point they just need to make the best decision possible for basketball. Football was supposed to be the thing necessary to keep them from winding up in the A-10 after the Big East split (the split was expected as far back as the early 90s, but the non-football schools have just kept chugging along perfectly fine). The goal wasn't to start up football because Conference USA was actually a pretty good conference in the 90s.

(04-01-2018 03:22 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  They earned an ACC invite imo but without it, they could slide down to the A-10 or even the AEC. The Big East has a good thing going with the Catholic theme, why should they change? For a school not even guaranteed to be good anymore?

Well this is just silliness. UConn leaving would be for a basketball upgrade, and UConn's easily the most valuable property available to the Big East and also has perfect geography. I think it's Creighton's AD that's on record saying UConn's the only school that could get 7 votes in the Big East right now.

All things considered, SLU and Dayton are their most valuable properties. The nBE is a Catholic/private deal. UConn is not what they were under Calhoun.