Bill Marsh wrote:stever20 wrote:Saw Hurley did in fact leave for UConn.
If nothing else, this totally shows where the A10 is in relation now to the AAC. To have your best coach leave for the AAC is devastating.
The AAC if UConn and Memphis get back to their normal becomes a whole lot more difficult to ignore. Already had 3 top 6 seed year this year.
Stever, the problem at UConn is its devastating drop in attendance in recent years, which is why they were willing to go to the max to get Hurley. If he’s successful, his contract will pay for itself.
Membership in the AAC hurts UConn attendance for a number of reasons, regardless of how the league is rated. So, objective #1 For both Hurley and their AD Benedict has to be to improve attendance. More wins will help a lot but they also need to bolster the schedule with schools that are of more interest to their fan base.
My proposal is that UConn use all of their available OOC games to schedule P6 Northeast teams from the Big East, ACC, and Big Ten. They should accept the fact that the bottom half of the AAC is a group of schools that teams normally schedule in November/December to warm up against. They should therefore lobby the AAC to schedule some conference games in December. In my proposal, they would play high level tournament games in November and go from there with the P6 games, saving some feature games with their old BE rivals for January/February.
This is the old “play any team, any time, any place” Gonzaga attitude with which a team schedules more like an independent than one whose feature games are in conference. Here are the 9 games I propose that they schedule OOC every year:
Boston College
Providence
Syracuse
St. John’s
Seton Hall
Rutgers
Villanova
Maryland
Georgetown
A side benefit would be building relationships with ACC and B1G schools who might eventually help them in their efforts to gain membership in one of these leagues. In this effort, they might prefer to schedule Pitt or Penn State instead of Seton Hall.
Your thoughts?
Bill Marsh wrote:stever20 wrote:Saw Hurley did in fact leave for UConn.
If nothing else, this totally shows where the A10 is in relation now to the AAC. To have your best coach leave for the AAC is devastating.
The AAC if UConn and Memphis get back to their normal becomes a whole lot more difficult to ignore. Already had 3 top 6 seed year this year.
Stever, the problem at UConn is its devastating drop in attendance in recent years, which is why they were willing to go to the max to get Hurley. If he’s successful, his contract will pay for itself.
Membership in the AAC hurts UConn attendance for a number of reasons, regardless of how the league is rated. So, objective #1 For both Hurley and their AD Benedict has to be to improve attendance. More wins will help a lot but they also need to bolster the schedule with schools that are of more interest to their fan base.
My proposal is that UConn use all of their available OOC games to schedule P6 Northeast teams from the Big East, ACC, and Big Ten. They should accept the fact that the bottom half of the AAC is a group of schools that teams normally schedule in November/December to warm up against. They should therefore lobby the AAC to schedule some conference games in December. In my proposal, they would play high level tournament games in November and go from there with the P6 games, saving some feature games with their old BE rivals for January/February.
This is the old “play any team, any time, any place” Gonzaga attitude with which a team schedules more like an independent than one whose feature games are in conference. Here are the 9 games I propose that they schedule OOC every year:
Boston College
Providence
Syracuse
St. John’s
Seton Hall
Rutgers
Villanova
Maryland
Georgetown
A side benefit would be building relationships with ACC and B1G schools who might eventually help them in their efforts to gain membership in one of these leagues. In this effort, they might prefer to schedule Pitt or Penn State instead of Seton Hall.
Your thoughts?
stever20 wrote:1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.
RedStorm wrote:stever20 wrote:1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.
Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.
Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.
herodotus wrote:Other than for their putrid play the last few years, attendance at UConn is hurt, and will be hurt by the bottom teams. Look, if UConn becomes good, they'll pack the place for Memphis, Houston, Cincy, WSU, and whatever other team might be very good. They won't draw well for the other teams because they suck, and there's no history. PC, St. John's, and Seton Hall weren't very good the last decade or so of the old BE, but fans would still come out to see UConn kill them because of familiarity. Now, honestly, UConn fans aren't going to care about playing Creighton right away, but since Creighton is good, a rivalry could develop. ECU is Rutgers, only worse. No rivalry will ever develop there.
RedStorm wrote:stever20 wrote:1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.
Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.
Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.
stever20 wrote:RedStorm wrote:stever20 wrote:1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.
Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.
Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.
what mid major conference has ever gotten 3 top 6 seeds?
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