UConn back to Big East?

StuckOnYouk

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Yea BC is having a down year no doubt but what Mora is doing in his first year is outstanding. And that’s with like 4 or 5 of our best offensive players out the year with injuries.
I know he will never get a Coach of the Year award as a potential .500 coach of an independent football team but he should be nominated (if there is such an award and people are nominated LOL).
I can’t remember the last time I saw 25k at the Rent. It was great to see.
 

StuckOnYouk

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So in 48; hours we drilled BCU in hockey and then beat them in football for the first time. Good week.
UConn hockey up to 8th In the USCHO poll and even receiving a first place vote! (Yeah the first place vote is probably unwarranted but I’ll take it)
 

JOBU

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Helluva effort from UCONN today. Upset ranked #19 Liberty. 6-5 and bowl eligible. Mora got the Gatorade bucket. Fans stormed the field… all 50 of them. What a turnaround for this program in such a short time period.
 

Dan Murfman

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Well, they were good and they were drawing crowds when they were members of the Big East, had an ESPN contract, and had a path to a big time bowl game. That's not to say they can't be good again -- god knows they can be better than they are now -- but their past success came in a totally different situation and needs to be disregarded when setting future expectations. That's why I asked what a good football season looks like, because they're not going to another Fiesta Bowl with the current set up. They don't even have a bad bowl tie-in, let alone a good one.
You know I never really ever disagreed with you and I thought they should kill the program a few times. And by no means are they out of the woods but this season was a good start and it’s a good season. And if I was a little younger I would have joined the other 50 JOBU was talking about in rushing the field. But
 

BaseballJones

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I work with the team and am so proud of these guys. Tremendous season and heck of a win today. Absolutely amazing!
 

Awesome Fossum

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You know I never really ever disagreed with you and I thought they should kill the program a few times. And by no means are they out of the woods but this season was a good start and it’s a good season. And if I was a little younger I would have joined the other 50 JOBU was talking about in rushing the field. But
Great season, no question. Happy for the UConn fans here.
 

bosox188

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It's still early but I think the men's basketball team might be really, really good. They're killing Oregon right now and they look like one of the best shooting teams the program has had in a long time. Cannot wait to see how they look in the rest of this tournament.
 

bosox188

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Okay, so yea. This team is really, really good. They have offensive capability that doesn't just hinge on one or two guys like recent past seasons, they can have a guy have a rough night and another get into foul trouble and keep scoring. And they. Can. Shoot.
 

StuckOnYouk

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They are playing great ball on both ends. The freshman are playing really well also. Karaban and Clingan are far ahead of what I was expecting.
Best team they’ve had since the 2014 championship year…and to think Hurley is bringing in a top 5 recruiting class next year.

Hoops, hockey, baseball, and Mora has bright the football program back from the dead. The athletic dept. is firing on all cylinders right now.
 

Average Reds

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Hoops, hockey, baseball, and Mora has bright the football program back from the dead. The athletic dept. is firing on all cylinders right now.
I only followed them the past few seasons because we know one of the players - Jackson Mitchell is from Ridgefield and we are friends of his parents. But the turnaround starting mid-season is simply amazing. My only hope is they keep Mora long enough to change the recruiting profile of the program.
 

BaseballJones

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Football very much on the rise.
Women's hoops: awesome as always (though they've dealt with so many injuries it's not even funny; so has the football team of course).
Men's hoops: looking fantastic, the program is very much on the rise.
Volleyball: great season, made it to the conference semis.
T&F: won the Big East championships last year, both men's and women's.
Baseball: made it to the College World Series.
Field hockey: always very good, lost in the conference championship.
Men's hockey: top 20 program.
Women's hockey: currently 11-6-2 and are very solid.
Women's soccer: lost in the conference championship on PKs.
Softball: 38-18 last year and lost to Villanova in the conference championship.

That's a whole lot of winning, both at the conference level and nationally. UConn athletics is in very good shape right now.
 

Dan Murfman

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Football very much on the rise.
Women's hoops: awesome as always (though they've dealt with so many injuries it's not even funny; so has the football team of course).
Men's hoops: looking fantastic, the program is very much on the rise.
Volleyball: great season, made it to the conference semis.
T&F: won the Big East championships last year, both men's and women's.
Baseball: made it to the College World Series.
Field hockey: always very good, lost in the conference championship.
Men's hockey: top 20 program.
Women's hockey: currently 11-6-2 and are very solid.
Women's soccer: lost in the conference championship on PKs.
Softball: 38-18 last year and lost to Villanova in the conference championship.

That's a whole lot of winning, both at the conference level and nationally. UConn athletics is in very good shape right now.
Nice list BJ but one small correction we only made it to the Super regional last year one game away from CWS.
 

bosox188

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While we await the PKI final games tomorrow, the men's hockey team is playing Cornell at MSG tonight at 8, ESPN+ should have the game. This team is legit. For anyone who's not already, now's a good time to get on the wagon (or in this case the Ice Bus).
 

luckiestman

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While we await the PKI final games tomorrow, the men's hockey team is playing Cornell at MSG tonight at 8, ESPN+ should have the game. This team is legit. For anyone who's not already, now's a good time to get on the wagon (or in this case the Ice Bus).
I saw them play outdoors maybe 10 years ago and maybe you can tell me the deal; was this right before they got full scholarships for the team or something like that. They have been pretty legit since then.

edit: it was Feb 2011, man I am getting old at an increasing rate it seems.
 

bosox188

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I saw them play outdoors maybe 10 years ago and maybe you can tell me the deal; was this right before they got full scholarships for the team or something like that. They have been pretty legit since then.

edit: it was Feb 2011, man I am getting old at an increasing rate it seems.
Yea, so 2011 was the year I graduated and they were definitely not a scholarship team at that point. They were in the Atlantic Hockey conference playing at that little rink on campus as a pretty mediocre team. I think it was in the 2013-2014 time frame when they moved to Hockey East, became a scholarship team, and hired Mike Cavanaugh as their head coach. And at that point they started playing their games at the XL Center.

They've basically been slowly getting better with every year. You're right that they've been legitimately good for a few years now (like a top 20-30ish team for most of their recent seasons), but last year was the first time they finally broke through in the postseason and advanced to the conference final (that was a heartbreaker). And this season is the first time they've been ranked in the top 10 (currently #6 in the country in both the rankings and in RPI).
 

JOBU

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Definitely haven’t been this excited about a UCONN team since the Calhoun days. Defensively sound and can beat you multiple ways with multiple scorers. This team has potential to be playing in the final weekend at the NCAA tourney.
 

StuckOnYouk

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Let’s not sell the hockey team short, they are currently #3 in pairwise.
New arena opening up in 6 weeks, Cavanaugh hasn’t even been able to bring recruits to it yet and he’s already knocking it out of the park.
Wanted to make it to MSG tonight but family stuff got in the way dammit.
 

bosox188

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So giving up 2 goals in the first minute and change is a great way to deflate all excitement for the event...

Edit: Although I will say, they've gone down early in a good number of games this season and have been pretty good about coming back in the next period. Including a comeback down 3 goals against Providence two weeks ago.
 

bosox188

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PK tournament titles for both the men and women today, absolutely amazing weekend for UConn basketball. The men beat Iowa State by almost 20 with Jordan Hawkins on the bench in foul trouble for nearly the entire game, and find a way to pull themselves out of the deranged rockfight that was the start of this game and keep generating offense no matter who's on the floor. Iowa State played extremely tough perimeter defense on them all night, previous teams of recent years would have been lucky to score 45. They continue to get incredible levels of contribution from freshmen Alex Karaban, and Donovan Clingan who wins the damn tournament MVP.

The men are an undisputed top 10 team and need to be ranked accordingly tomorrow, and the women are now the only team who already have three wins against top 10 teams on the season.
 

BaseballJones

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The women's non conference schedule is ridiculous. It includes 7 games against top 25 teams.

#3 Texas (W)
#10 NC State (W)
#9 Iowa (W)
#7 Notre Dame
#14 Maryland
#23 Tennessee
#1 South Carolina

Granted, their conference schedule isn't super difficult, which is why Geno plays all these tough non conference opponents, but still, it's amazing - he ducks absolutely nobody.
 

bosox188

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The women's non conference schedule is ridiculous. It includes 7 games against top 25 teams.

#3 Texas (W)
#10 NC State (W)
#9 Iowa (W)
#7 Notre Dame
#14 Maryland
#23 Tennessee
#1 South Carolina

Granted, their conference schedule isn't super difficult, which is why Geno plays all these tough non conference opponents, but still, it's amazing - he ducks absolutely nobody.
They also do have some decent opponents in Big East play. Creighton and Villanova are both ranked in the Top 25 right now, and Marquette looks like a solid team that just beat #19 Texas and took #20 UCLA to overtime. They could very well be sneaking into the rankings soon. UConn plays each of those teams twice.
 

RedOctober3829

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UConn men are up to #8 in this week's AP poll after that unbelievable performance this past weekend up in Portland. They are deeper and more talented than any UConn team IMO since their 05-06 #1 seeded team. That includes the national title winning team in 2014. Sanogo is an All-American candidate. Hawkins is one of the best scorers in the conference. Andre Jackson is a swiss army knife guy who would be starting for most any other team(he may end up starting soon if Allenye continues to struggle). Tristan Newton is a dynamic PG who can score and dish. Karaban and Clingan are really good freshmen. They have a good shot to enter BE play undefeated(vs. Oklahoma State Thursday, at Florida 12/7, vs. LIU 12/10) in mid-December. In BE play, they start with at Butler and home Georgetown so those should be wins too. It starts to get interesting after that with a home game against Villanova on 12/28 and at Xavier on NYE.
 

bosox188

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New men's AP Top 10 is out, UConn is at #8 right behind Creighton. There are a lot of feelings seeing that single digit ranking next to their name again, it's been a long time. The way Hurley rebuilt this team between seasons is absolutely incredible.
 

JOBU

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Team is a monster and will be in every game they play this season. Pending injuries this team looks special. Where is the Final Four this year?
 

Plantiers Wart

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UConn men are up to #8 in this week's AP poll after that unbelievable performance this past weekend up in Portland. They are deeper and more talented than any UConn team IMO since their 05-06 #1 seeded team. That includes the national title winning team in 2014. Sanogo is an All-American candidate. Hawkins is one of the best scorers in the conference. Andre Jackson is a swiss army knife guy who would be starting for most any other team(he may end up starting soon if Allenye continues to struggle). Tristan Newton is a dynamic PG who can score and dish. Karaban and Clingan are really good freshmen. They have a good shot to enter BE play undefeated(vs. Oklahoma State Thursday, at Florida 12/7, vs. LIU 12/10) in mid-December. In BE play, they start with at Butler and home Georgetown so those should be wins too. It starts to get interesting after that with a home game against Villanova on 12/28 and at Xavier on NYE.

And a top five recruiting class coming in next season.......
 

BaseballJones

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UConn football officially in a bowl - Myrtle Beach bowl. What a turnaround for that team.

UConn women's hoops suffered another huge injury - Azzi Fudd with a knee injury early in today's game at Notre Dame. Don't know what it is but man oh man. They're already missing:

Paige Bueckers - one of the best players in the country - for the season with a torn ACL.
Dorca Juhasz - their top center - for a while longer with a broken bone.
Ice Brady - their top freshman and a big - with a patella injury, gone for the season.

And now Fudd, one of the best guards in the nation, for who knows how long with who knows what injury.

It's just absolutely unreal what that team has been through injury-wise the last few years. All that and they still have gone 6-1 against an absolutely brutal schedule so far.
 

JOBU

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That’s kind of crazy. Really shows the dominance of the lady huskies team. Guessing that final poll rankings weren’t included? The mens team won a natty in 2011 while the women didn’t. They must have been ranked higher in that final poll?
 

Dan Murfman

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Humphrey

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That was the year UConn won the Big East tournament, having to win 5 games to do it. 21-9 going into the tournament, ended up 32-9.
 

JOBU

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Yeah this team is a unit. Was expecting a battle tonight and they rolled the gators by 21 on the road no less. Pt guard play is a little troubling. Too many times Newton and Diarra dribbled into traffic and getting themselves into a dead end. This will be a top 5 team all year and a maybe even a favorite to cut the nets down.
 

Dan Murfman

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The biggest surprise has to be how well Clingan is playing. I was expecting him to get limited minutes but he’s ready for a big role. Should help Sanogo stay fresh as season goes on. But in the back of my mind. Haven’t won a tournament game since 2016.
 

bosox188

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The UConn men are the best team in the country. I'm fully there. I'll take them against anyone. There is no style of game you can put them in, no matchup, that they can't win.
 

OCST

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With all this winning, I wonder if one or more of the Power 5 are thinking about UConn. B1G might be wondering if they could throw Tutgers back into the pond. If the point of Rutgers was the NYC media market, UConn has more visibility here and it’s not close.
 

BaseballJones

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Well you can’t just dump a school from the conference but yeah UConn athletics really ought to be in a power 5 conference at this point. Football would get ROLLED in the big ten but everything else would play just fine, thank you. Actually volleyball would get killed too.
 

bosox188

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So I'll preface this by saying I recognize this take is completely irrational and may meander into deranged territory. But honestly, no thanks fuck them. B1G, ACC, the whole lot of them, I'm fine sticking with the Big East and letting football find a niche as our fun little independent team. I will always hold a grudge over conference realignment and the decimation of the old Big East and I don't want to be part of it.

The schadenfreude of being a top ten basketball team and sticking it to the "Power 5" schools in the tournament, is more valuable and nourishing to my soul than to join the B1G and schools we have no real ties to so we can be National TV Check Cashing Champions. Besides, when Rutgers went to the B1G, UConn was a winning school, it was before the Ollie era went sour and wrecked the program. It was never about getting the best programs.
 

BaseballJones

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I feel you, @bosox188 - I really do. BUT....there's no chance that the UConn athletic department feels the same way. If they get a chance to be in a Power 5 conference....they're jumping at it, period, end of story. Too much money at stake.
 

Dan Murfman

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Well unfortunately that is true. UConn would have to jump especially when you see what all that ACC cash has done for the likes of BC, Syracuse and Pitt. But of course I don’t think it’s anything UConn will have to worry about.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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So I'll preface this by saying I recognize this take is completely irrational and may meander into deranged territory. But honestly, no thanks fuck them. B1G, ACC, the whole lot of them, I'm fine sticking with the Big East and letting football find a niche as our fun little independent team. I will always hold a grudge over conference realignment and the decimation of the old Big East and I don't want to be part of it.

The schadenfreude of being a top ten basketball team and sticking it to the "Power 5" schools in the tournament, is more valuable and nourishing to my soul than to join the B1G and schools we have no real ties to so we can be National TV Check Cashing Champions. Besides, when Rutgers went to the B1G, UConn was a winning school, it was before the Ollie era went sour and wrecked the program. It was never about getting the best programs.
I have no problem with this. I’m wondering whether a P5 would want UConn; that’s a different question than whether it would be a good thing. Seems like things are going fine at the moment. Football independent is not a big deal imo.
 

Awesome Fossum

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I’m wondering whether a P5 would want UConn; that’s a different question than whether it would be a good thing.
The answer is no, a P5 does not want UConn. Football drives the bus, and UConn football is not in a position to add enough value to a power conference so that slicing the pie one more way will pay off for everyone else.