Melky Cabrera
Bill Bradley
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RE: ACC Still Pissed at UConn After 10 Years
(05-10-2013 11:01 AM)orangefan Wrote: (05-10-2013 10:31 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote: (05-10-2013 12:38 AM)nzmorange Wrote: (05-09-2013 09:30 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote: If you look at:
1) the overall quality of the athletic department/commitment to success
2) local market/fan support
3) national brand
4) academics
UConn is as good (or better) than Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, and Virginia Tech. Therefore, the only two possible explanations on why UConn isn't in the ACC would be our lack of FB tradition (1-AA until 2000) and the lawsuit. Maybe it's a combination of both of those reasons. But it's NOT due to #1 to #4 listed above.
BTW, the lawsuit was justified. The people of Connecticut spent a lot of money to upgrade the UConn FB program based on the Big East schools remaining together. And at that time, certain schools were working privately to get out of the conference. If we had known that the Big East was not long for this Earth, the upgrade expenses may not have been spent.
You do realize that "UCONN" stand for the "University of Connecticut," and not "Notre Dame," right?
UCONN does not have better academics than more than half the schools that you listed, UCONN doesn't have a better national brand than any of the schools that you listed (other than possibly BC), UCONN does not have better fan support than about half the schools that you listed, and UCONN has a football stadium 20-30 miles from campus, so it's safe to say that UCONN doesn't have better facilities than most D-I schools in America, let alone schools like UL.
FWIW, I'm not even anti-UCONN. Honestly, UCONN is in my dream northeastern conference.
Just curious . . .
How did either of you measure the value of anyone's national brand?
UConn was recently ranked #21 among public research universities, putting it ahead of Louisville. BC doesn't even attempt to do the level of research that UConn does. Syracuse was recently dropped from AAU for its level or research in the sciences, precisely the area where UConn has been expanding.
UConn's stadium is where it is for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest was fan access and traffic patterns. The 21 miles that the stadium is from campus is a non-issue because of the ease of travel around central CT. Students are easily bused. Every other facility on campus is top shelf and everything is being constantly modernized. After much investment in football facilities, their is currently a $35 million project under way for basketball practice facilities. Unless you've actually been to the UConn facilities on campus and experienced a UConn football game in East hartford, you're not really in a position to comment.
It's funny that you choose Louisville to compare with regard to facilities since their new basketball facility is off campus. Like Louisville and many large state universities. UConn's facilities are not all located in one place. While the main campus is located 21 miles from The Rent in East Hartford, UConn's Law School, Medical School, School of Social Work, and a satellite undergraduate/graduate campus are all located in Hartford. For UConn fans and students, the East Hartford site made the most sense for the football stadium. I have no idea why you have a problem with it and why your thoughts would bring into question the quality of the facility or be relevant in any way. At least UConn is not playing in a pro stadium like Pitt
National Brand = ability to deliver national TV ratings for football and basketball.
This value can be teased out of comparing ratings of similar matchups with different schools over a period of time. A very simple example could be derived from the Big East Friday night football games this past year. SU-Pitt earned a 1.0, SU-UConn earned a 0.8, and UConn-Pitt earned a 0.6. http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2012/12/...s-season/. If all schools are equally competitive, i.e. are similarly positioned for success during the ongoing season, and the timeslots are equal, the relative ratings would define who has more National Brand. Assuming this were true for SU, Pitt and Uconn for football in 2012, these three ratings would suggest that SU has the strongest National Brand of the group for football, Pitt second, and UConn third.
The reasoning is sound but it's myopic to look at only one season. Coincidentally, your SU-Pitt-UConn rank order also coincides with their relative positions in the standings and with the fact that Syracuse tied for the conference title, Pitt went bowling, and Uconn had a down year. Go back 5 years to a season when UConn tied for the conference title, Pitt missed a bowl game by one win, and syracuse finished at the bottom of the conference and I bet you'd get different results.
For this kind of analysis to be meaningful period of time, not just one year - at least 5 years and preferably 10.
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