Winners / Losers if UConn joins the Big East

[MullinMayhem]

Winners: Big East...much more money per school and likely more tourney credits. Also more prestige, exposure, and puts to bed any discussion as to whether or not we are a legit power conference. Most knew already, but this silences the naysayers left over. Even if by some miracle UConn goes to a F5 conference, the worst case is we gained a lot of money and we are back where we were which was already a good position. Literally a win-win with zero downside.

Losers: AAC both perception wise (this signals to the world that the Big East is well above the AAC...sorry Stever) and competitively. Of course UConn wasn't good in the AAC save for 1 year with Calhoun leftovers...but they were about to get good again either this year or next. Taking the brand away from them hurts badly for them. Cincy is hurting after losing Cronin. SMU is back to SMU after Brown left. Tacko is gone from UCF. Yes Memphis has the top notch class, but there's zero guarantee they do anything especially with a new coach. Memphis and Houston are the only ones who can do anything major on the national level next year.

All of these games will be sell outs or near sell outs:

UConn vs. SJ (MSG)
UConn vs. SJ (@ UConn)
UConn vs. Nova (@ Nova)
UConn vs. Nova (@ UConn)
UConn vs. G'Town (@ G'Town)
UConn vs. G'Town (@UConn)
UConn vs. PC (@ PC)
UConn vs. PC (@ UConn)

That's being conservative...there may be sell outs or near sell outs vs. Marq, SHU, Butler, etc. as well. So by adding UConn we gain at least 8 likely sell outs if not more. That doesn't even count how many more tickets we will sell for the Big East Tourney which was already the best attended in the nation without them. No one can argue anymore...the Big East has its swagger back.

[Django]

18k at CU as well. So does this mean I won’t be able to scalp Thursday BET tix for 20 bucks anymore?

[stever20]

Memphis did pretty well last year with not so much talent. Hardaway did a pretty nice job. Also he's coached some of these guys before so won't have to learn his system as much.....

While yes some teams are falling, others are rising. USF has a very real shot to make the tourney next year. And I still think end of the day they go out and get VCU to help out a lot as well and be able to keep the 12 team setup in basketball playing 18 games and get to avoid playing the bad teams a 2nd time for the top teams.

Last 5 years, UConn has gone 38-25 OOC. So that's an average of 5 losses per year. That doesn't help much at all. And gone in that same period 43-47 in conference play.

Like I said, a far greater concern is Cincy with Cronin gone. That is where things could go south for the AAC. Cincy has gone in that same 5 year period 52-13 OOC and then 71-19 in conference play.

UConn's performance you can replace fairly easily. But what Cincy has done? That IMO is where the AAC could start taking on water.

[X-man]

Xavier-UConn at Xavier will sell out as well because Xavier sells out virtually every game. Between students and season tickets, there are virtually no single game tickets to be had except through the resell market.

[adoraz]

Perception wise, I agree with you 100%. But as far as on the court metrics, really don't think it's the case.

So for "on the court metrics" you're ignoring UConn's class for this upcoming season? Recruiting has the strongest correlation to future success, and UConn is #2 in the AAC and #21 nationally. You're looking at a very small time frame of the past 4 years, and ignoring the prior 2 decades (4 championships) along with their future recruiting. If you were happy with this past year where 4 teams made the Tournament (and 2 last year), then sure this news isn't that bad. But I know you expect them to do better and UConn was critical to the AAC's future.

They got 4 in and Memphis was realistically 2 minutes vs Texas Tech away from getting in last year as well.

Ok...? I said they got 4 in (reread my post), and I couldn't care less about what Memphis could have been since you could say the same thing about dozens of bubble/NIT teams. Every bubble team was two minutes away and Memphis wasn't even a true bubble team. If you're fine with the mediocre type season AAC had last year (similar to the Big East's mediocre season), then good for you.

Nice job ignoring all the valid points I made. You know I'm right .

[stever20]

If Memphis had beaten Texas Tech, they would have been end of the year 22-12 with 3 Q1 wins and a top 40 NET. Sorry but a resume like that last year with the win over Texas Tech- they'd have gotten in. Especially with how close they were with Cincy and Houston late in the season.....

The problem you are making is you want to look back at UConn 15-20 years ago. The problem is the AAC wasn't around then. All we have to look at are these 6 years- and even really moreso only last 5 years after all the moves got finished. That UConn has not been strong at all. That's the UConn that we have to evaluate in terms of how it's going to impact the AAC on the floor. If the AAC was only getting 2-3 teams in with UConn being one of them, dominating the conference, then what you're saying would be spot on. But the fact of the matter is that has not been the case at all whatsoever. The average Ken Pom rating last 5 years for UConn has been 94.4. You say that's not fair, that includes the 17-18 season where they were putrid. That's fair. But then you have to consider the outlier the other way of the 2015-16 season where they finished 25-11.... But you take those other 3 years- and the average is 89. That's the UConn that the league is losing.

[kayako]

Well, I mean Marquette, Creighton, and Xavier don't really have problems filling their arenas. Uconn impacts them far less than they would Georgetown, Seton Hall, and to a lesser degree Wells Fargo. I am kind of curious, were Cintas and Clink packed like that before they got into the Big East?

[kayako]

Nice job ignoring all the valid points I made. You know I'm right .

I try to give people benefit of the doubt, but it's beyond obvious to me that he's just trolling here. He'll never turn face here because he's a college fb fan that hates the P5.

[adoraz]

Nice job ignoring all the valid points I made. You know I'm right .

I try to give people benefit of the doubt, but it's beyond obvious to me that he's just trolling here. He'll never turn face here because he's a college fb fan that hates the P5.

I don't even think he's a big college football fan, I think he just hates the P5 and Big East (the P6, as CBS put it on Selection Sunday).

I've noticed most of our other resident trolls haven't been active this past week. With this UConn news Stever had the perfect opportunity to abandon the AAC, but now it's too late. At least he's consistent I guess.

[gtmoBlue]

Well, I mean Marquette, Creighton, and Xavier don't really have problems filling their arenas. Uconn impacts them far less than they would Georgetown, Seton Hall, and to a lesser degree Wells Fargo. I am kind of curious, were Cintas and Clink packed like that before they got into the Big East?

Yes, Cintas and the Chico have been packed for over a decade. Refer to NCAA Div1 attendance lists