Winners / Losers if UConn joins the Big East

[MarquetteRustler]

Sounding like the AAC is gonna stay at 11 members and move to a full round robin.

Losers: Everyone in the AAC not named ECU/Tulane for having to play each of those NET dregs twice a year.

[stever20]

except for the fact that the NET doesn't penalize playing bad teams anywhere near as bad as the RPI used to. Houston played ECU twice and Tulane once last year, and didn't have a great OOC schedule. They still finished #4 in the NET.

Teams like ECU/Tulane don't hurt anywhere near as much in the NET as they did the RPI. You could play one of those teams and see your rating drop 4-5 spots just by playing them. That wasn't the case last year in the NET.

[X Hoops 19]

Sounding like the AAC is gonna stay at 11 members and move to a full round robin.

Losers: Everyone in the AAC not named ECU/Tulane for having to play each of those NET dregs twice a year.

Yeah, so 8 of 20 conference games will be against ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, and South Florida. Talk about having to navigate a mine field where you can’t afford to have an off night for at least 40% of your conference schedule.

[kayako]

Yeah, so 8 of 20 conference games will be against ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, and South Florida. Talk about having to navigate a mine field where you can’t afford to have an off night for at least 40% of your conference schedule.

South Florida did edge DePaul for a championship.

[stever20]

Sounding like the AAC is gonna stay at 11 members and move to a full round robin.

Losers: Everyone in the AAC not named ECU/Tulane for having to play each of those NET dregs twice a year.

Yeah, so 8 of 20 conference games will be against ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, and South Florida. Talk about having to navigate a mine field where you can’t afford to have an off night for at least 40% of your conference schedule.

Is that the same USF team that could be a tier 1 road game this year(they return a lot from the team last year that did pretty darn well)? Or Tulsa where they finished last year #94 in the NET?

Tulsa was #94 last year, and USF was #99. UConn was #95.

[X-man]

I guess my position with the AAC with Uconn levaing is that UConn last 5 years hasn't performed well at all- only made tourney 1 time- and the league still got on average 3 bids per year. So I don't see how losing a program that went 38-25 OOC the last 5 years is really going to damage the AAC that much.

My position is that it's far more of a positive for the Big East than it is a negative for the AAC. UConn will probably improve in the Big East(though I think they would have still given Hurley being around). For the AAC you're still going to find these old CUSA programs like UCF, Houston, Memphis, etc. with a lot more money and they've taken advantage of that. 4 of the 6 programs from CUSA have made the tourney in their first 5-6 years(the 2 that haven't ECU and Tulane are going into year 6). I don't see that changing.

I would argue that the thing that has the potential to hurt the AAC far more than UConn leaving is Cronin leaving Cincy.

One other thing. I've seen folks mention that the AAC might go round robin and so teams having to play the bad teams twice. I'd argue with the NET that means far less now than it used to. The concept of RPI killers where it'd be better to lose to a better team than beat a bad team- is gone.

So is UConn leaving the AAAAAACCC bad for AAAAACCC or not? You say first that UConn was bad anyway so losing them won't hurt the league. But then you say that it will help the Big East because UConn will get better at least partly because of Hurley. So does this mean that having Hurley wouldn't help UConn had they stayed in the AAACCC? That's what your words imply.

[X Hoops 19]

Sounding like the AAC is gonna stay at 11 members and move to a full round robin.

Losers: Everyone in the AAC not named ECU/Tulane for having to play each of those NET dregs twice a year.

Yeah, so 8 of 20 conference games will be against ECU, Tulane, Tulsa, and South Florida. Talk about having to navigate a mine field where you can’t afford to have an off night for at least 40% of your conference schedule.

Is that the same USF team that could be a tier 1 road game this year(they return a lot from the team last year that did pretty darn well)? Or Tulsa where they finished last year #94 in the NET?

Tulsa was #94 last year, and USF was #99. UConn was #95.

I was referring to 4 historically irrelevant programs that might have outlier seasons every now and again, but will always revert back to irrelevancy due, in large part, to the conference in which they play.
I can tell you for a fact that UC fans are NOT happy with the thought of those 4 teams taking up such a significant portion of their conference schedules for the foreseeable future.

[stever20]

That's fair. What I'm thinking is the program they're losing isn't one that has been performing well as of late- don't think you can dispute that- 3 straight losing seasons- one of a handful of bad teams that can say that in the top 7 conferences... So losing them in terms of their metrics won't hurt much there. If they go get a VCU to replace them, for the season metrics, they won't be hurt much.

Now for the Big East, they will get the benefit of Hurley getting them probably going back to what they could be. Having the local rivalries should get them going.

I could easily see a scenario where VCU comes in and replaces UConn in the AAC, and the AAC on the court is stronger than they have been. But at the same time, UConn comes into the Big East and gets back to being a top 25 program. All that would do is further seperate the top 7 conferences from everyone else.

[stever20]

I was referring to 4 historically irrelevant programs that might have outlier seasons every now and again, but will always revert back to irrelevancy due, in large part, to the conference in which they play.
I can tell you for a fact that UC fans are NOT happy with the thought of those 4 teams taking up such a significant portion of their conference schedules for the foreseeable future.

Except for the fact that those programs(ok, well not USF but the other 3 are in a situation where they are in a conference with now over triple the money of what they were getting when they were in CUSA. Look at the coaches ECU and Tulane have. ECU got Dooley(from Florida Gulf Coast) and Tulane got Hunter(from Georgia State). That doesn't happen 5 years ago. USF even with Gregory has a better coach than they have in a long time.

Also, I really don't think that it's a lock that the AAC doesn't go get VCU and keep the schedule as is.

[adoraz]

Stever- your response to situations like this is why we all get on your case so hard. This is one of those times where you just have to take the L and admit this sucks for the AAC. Either you're lying or your brain is doing some insane coping mechanisms to convince yourself otherwise.

None of us are saying this is the end of the AAC. I fully expect it to remain a multi-bid league. However, it is still really bad for the league.