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The location is what is it is, but the fact that UConn is down, but is getting carried by their crowd is obnoxious. When played in Memphis, while they have a clear advantage as well, at least the city gets behind basketball. In Hartford it is 100% UConn and the town could care less beyond that.

Beat Uconn because quite frankly they are not very good!

DBB

Duke Blue Blood wrote:The location is what is it is, but the fact that UConn is down, but is getting carried by their crowd is obnoxious. When played in Memphis, while they have a clear advantage as well, at least the city gets behind basketball. In Hartford it is 100% UConn and the town could care less beyond that.

Beat Uconn because quite frankly they are not very good!

DBB

Agree. I don't recall any games in Memohis being as empty as EVERY game not featuring the Beloved Huskies has been this week.

No more American tourneys should be on the geographic periphery of the conference, after Orlando.

I have been to conference tourney games in Memphis with not more than 20 fans in attendance

Dukie wrote:

Duke Blue Blood wrote:The location is what is it is, but the fact that UConn is down, but is getting carried by their crowd is obnoxious. When played in Memphis, while they have a clear advantage as well, at least the city gets behind basketball. In Hartford it is 100% UConn and the town could care less beyond that.

Beat Uconn because quite frankly they are not very good!

DBB

Agree. I don't recall any games in Memohis being as empty as EVERY game not featuring the Beloved Huskies has been this week.

No more American tourneys should be on the geographic periphery of the conference, after Orlando.

Memphis is a much bigger city than Hartford and it was geographically closer to both the alumni bases of smu and louiseville. Doesn't surprise me that more people showed up. Also now that Rutgers has left uconn is a complete outlier when it comes to the geography of the conference. I would love if we took the top 6 teams from the big east and formed a super basketball conference (like the old big east it would be the best BB conference in the country). You could either play divisions with a north and south or just a play everyone once and root ate home and away.

Pony_Law wrote:Memphis is a much bigger city than Hartford and it was geographically closer to both the alumni bases of smu and louiseville. Doesn't surprise me that more people showed up. Also now that Rutgers has left uconn is a complete outlier when it comes to the geography of the conference. I would love if we took the top 6 teams from the big east and formed a super basketball conference (like the old big east it would be the best BB conference in the country). You could either play divisions with a north and south or just a play everyone once and root ate home and away.

The American loves to help out Connecticut for some reason, probably since the HQ is in Providence.

It will be interesting to see if they ever have the women's tournament anywhere else.

We just need to finish the deal this year, survive what the ncaa throws at us, reload with Semi Sed and Shake, and make the AAC have the tournament at the AAC

DanFreibergerForHeisman wrote:

Pony_Law wrote:Memphis is a much bigger city than Hartford and it was geographically closer to both the alumni bases of smu and louiseville. Doesn't surprise me that more people showed up. Also now that Rutgers has left uconn is a complete outlier when it comes to the geography of the conference. I would love if we took the top 6 teams from the big east and formed a super basketball conference (like the old big east it would be the best BB conference in the country). You could either play divisions with a north and south or just a play everyone once and root ate home and away.

The American loves to help out Connecticut for some reason, probably since the HQ is in Providence.

It will be interesting to see if they ever have the women's tournament anywhere else.

I also think the American likes to help out uconn because they are the last true "brand name" left in the conference. Thank god uconn football is awful or they would already be in the AAC.

Duke Blue Blood wrote:The location is what is it is, but the fact that UConn is down, but is getting carried by their crowd is obnoxious. When played in Memphis, while they have a clear advantage as well, at least the city gets behind basketball. In Hartford it is 100% UConn and the town could care less beyond that.

Beat Uconn because quite frankly they are not very good!

DBB

Actually, Hartford is 100% Uconn BB. They could give a flip about Uconn FB.

CalallenStang wrote:I have been to conference tourney games in Memphis with not more than 20 fans in attendance

OK, I may have exaggerated. How about a semifinal featuring Fran Dunphy- and LB-coached teams?

Pony_Law wrote:I also think the American likes to help out uconn because they are the last true "brand name" left in the conference. Thank god uconn football is awful or they would already be in the ACC.

FIFY. IMHO, the ACC passing on UConn wasn't about them being terrible in FB. The last ACC expansion was around the time UConn was decent enough to sneak into the Fiesta Bowl. It had more to do with options that were at least as good and were better for the ACC to lock up before someone else did (Louisville is the best example). The brutal logic for UConn is that the ACC knows they have nowhere else to go, so there was less urgency about taking them.

Finally, their BS suit over prior ACC raids on the Big East didn't help, of course. If HCCM gets things going, SMU will get in to the ACC before UConn will.

Dukie wrote:

CalallenStang wrote:I have been to conference tourney games in Memphis with not more than 20 fans in attendance

OK, I may have exaggerated. How about a semifinal featuring Fran Dunphy- and LB-coached teams?

Never had one of those in Memphis, so no basis for comparison

Dukie wrote:

Pony_Law wrote:I also think the American likes to help out uconn because they are the last true "brand name" left in the conference. Thank god uconn football is awful or they would already be in the ACC.

FIFY. IMHO, the ACC passing on UConn wasn't about them being terrible in FB. The last ACC expansion was around the time UConn was decent enough to sneak into the Fiesta Bowl. It had more to do with options that were at least as good and were better for the ACC to lock up before someone else did (Louisville is the best example). The brutal logic for UConn is that the ACC knows they have nowhere else to go, so there was less urgency about taking them.

Finally, their BS suit over prior ACC raids on the Big East didn't help, of course. If HCCM gets things going, SMU will get in to the ACC before UConn will.

The Uconn fans know that they are in a terrible mess with very little hope of finding their way out.
1) when the Big East was whole, they played their rivals (BC, Syracuse, Rutgers) in football and recruited on relatively even terms for the same players. Essentially, the got kicked out of the SWC and didn't even get to play TCU, UH or Rice anymore. In football, they are getting killed in recruiting and playing teams that nobody in the area knows squat about.
2) yesterday, the waiter in our suite asked where SMU was located.
3) many fans would like them to rejoin the Big East and give up on D1 football. While they have friends who went to most of the Big East schools, very few of them know people from AAC schools not named Temple or Navy.

The conferences aren't looking to grow in an area that excludes Boston and NY.

So many experts on the Internet

Dukie wrote:

Pony_Law wrote:I also think the American likes to help out uconn because they are the last true "brand name" left in the conference. Thank god uconn football is awful or they would already be in the ACC.

FIFY. IMHO, the ACC passing on UConn wasn't about them being terrible in FB. The last ACC expansion was around the time UConn was decent enough to sneak into the Fiesta Bowl. It had more to do with options that were at least as good and were better for the ACC to lock up before someone else did (Louisville is the best example). The brutal logic for UConn is that the ACC knows they have nowhere else to go, so there was less urgency about taking them.

Finally, their BS suit over prior ACC raids on the Big East didn't help, of course. If HCCM gets things going, SMU will get in to the ACC before UConn will.

Not getting into the ACC actually had (and still has) everything to to with Boston College still being po'd about UConn's reaction to their departure from the Big East as well as not wanting to compete for New England's college sports attention.

SMU Pony Mom wrote:Not getting into the ACC actually had (and still has) everything to to with Boston College still being po'd about UConn's reaction to their departure from the Big East as well as not wanting to compete for New England's college sports attention.

Very true.