RebKell's Junkie Boards

[Homyonkel]

[Queenie]

[ucdt3]

Elena Delle Donne's 4 year career of not facing a Top 25 rival conference team really just shot her career in the ass before it could even take off. How did she not hang herself?

Why are you people even entertaining this anti-WBB fan? Hate permiates this person's veins. Just ignore. Take the higher road and move on.

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#UConnbias

http://uconnwbball.blogspot.com/
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[ClayK]

[readyAIMfire53]

[Davis4632]

^ Fans of conferences make fun of other conferences all of the time. Whether it's about academics, sports, how the coeds look, etc. At the moment, I don't see UConn being in the AAC having a negative effect on their recruiting.

[tfan]

If the other top 25 coaches were smart, they wouldn't schedule any non-conference games with UConn (looking at you Stanford, Duke, South Carolina and Notre Dame). Let UConn go undefeated each year but head into the tournament with their toughest contest being against USF. They still probably have too much talent, but at least add "lack of elite competition during the regular season" as an issue they have to face.

[Homyonkel]

[linkster]

[ridor]

ucdt3, you cannot use Elena Delle Donne's conference (Colonial Athletic Association) against the AAC. AAC's history is nonexistant. CAA is a mid-major conference with a long history of CWB. It had Richmond, James Madison, Drexel, Delaware and especially Old Dominion as formidable foes in CAA for many years before Richmond left for Atlantic 10 and ODU to C-USA. CAA is a notch better than the AAC but CAA is a step below Atlantic 10, a step better than CUSA. CUSA is even better than the AAC.

James Madison already proved themselves by reaching Sweet Sixteen more than 5 times in 32-field, 48-field, 64-field NCAA Tournaments as well as reaching the Postseason WNIT Championship. ODU had reached Elite Eight, Final Four, National Championship Game, dozens of Sweet Sixteen when they were in the CAA. Drexel & Richmond always had been respectable teams outside of CAA and presented a constant challenge to each other as well as Delaware having its little history BEFORE Elena Delle Donne made her history with Delaware.

So yes, the CAA is legitimate mid-major conference. And you tried to compare the AAC with the CAA, dude? Just don't. CAA had these 5 teams against each other for decades and what have you in the AAC? Only two: Connecticut and South Florida. Other than Temple (during the Staley Era), what did they have in Central Florida, East Carolina, Tulsa, Tulane, Southern Methodist, Houston & Memphis? Hello!

You simply cannot compare the CAA who already proved themselves with the AAC.

R-

[ridor]

tfan, exactly. You said it much better than I did. If these coaches were smart, they would have done that yesterday. And I'm waiting for Tara, Dawn & Muffet to understand that they absolutely have no benefits in playing UConn. They need to cut them out to break and doom their recruiting pitches.

This reminded me of Cathy Inglese's run at Vermont where she coached the teams to two regular season undefeated at 28-0 & 29-0 at Vermont in 1990-91 & 1991-92. She & UVM said that they could not even schedule any home-home game with Connecticut despite the fact that Storrs is only 255 miles away. Cathy Inglese left for Boston College where she became a thorn for Geno & UConn at times. I did watch them play in the first round between Joe McKeown's George Washington and Cathy Inglese's Vermont which GWU escaped with an 1-point win at Smith Center in DC.

When Inglese, Pam Borton & Keith Cieplicki were at Vermont, they all failed to schedule home-home games with UConn. Why? Because UConn refused to play because they found no benefits in playing UVM because Geno & others knew that Vermont presented a threat to their domination in New England.

Inglese went 110-54, Borton went 69-46 and Keith Cieplicki went 127-53 at Vermont between 1986-2003 and all only played two games against UConn, both at Storrs. In fact, they finally played each other in 2009 when UConn secured the domination of New England after multiplying wins of National Championships at six.

That particular two games in 1988 & 1993 occurred when UVM was rebuilding, Catamounts played both games at Storrs. Between 1993-2009, Geno refused to play Vermont because Geno saw no benefit in playing the Catamounts, especially in Burlington. As for UVM, they played Providence, Brown, Hartford, Syracuse, Marist, Quinnipiac, Rhode Island, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, George Washington, James Madison, Delaware, Dartmouth (which was good team in 199os), Texas, Miami (FL) to name few.

When Tennessee chose to terminate the series with UConn, UConn FOWs was outraged because Tennessee chose to stop giving the benefits to UConn so they accused Tennessee of being a coward and at the same time, they scrambled to look for a national rival with Baylor, Duke, Stanford and Notre Dame. These schools played UConn because they believed in the growth of the sport. UConn does not care about the growth, it wants the Top 25 teams on its schedule because it gives them an edge in recruiting wars to win national championships. So when Baylor & Duke cuts them out, what did UConn do? They called them out on that.

UConn was no better, it refused to play Vermont when they were very good team in New England until the Huskies secured its multiple of national championships - they finally played only one game in 2009 - in Storrs, a 84-42 win for UConn. The lifetime record between Vermont and Connecticut is 11-0 in favor of UConn. If they did play few games between 1988-1995, I can safely say that UConn would lose few games to Vermont.

And when I mocked at UConn about their shitty conference, people said I'm hateful on this, that and there. Oh, please. Get real! Geno is truly a coward all along in the first place. They were cowards for not playing Vermont at Burlington when they were very good back then. And now I'm doing the similar thing in mocking them of their conference status - it is high time that other teams like Notre Dame, Stanford & South Carolina to cut the series because playing UConn does not give them any benefits to their programs in the long run.

Cheers,

R-

[ridor]

linkster, why don't you ask UConn on why they refused to play home-home games against Vermont in 1980s-1990s? Why target the others for doing the same thing that UConn did on Vermont. People who lives in glass houses should not throw stones either.

RAF: You're such a bore, really. I have nothing to say to you ... none whatsoever.

Homyonkel, no. It can't be "formal" thing to do. It has to be done by individual choice through the private conversations amongst the coaches & recruiters behind the scenes, especially at WBCA Conventions. If they do it formal, UConn would file a compliant with NCAAs against the other schools for "formalizing" the shunning of their program. So it is better to do this through the informal process.

[Homyonkel]

[NickDMB]

[ridor]

Homyonkel: 214 fans? Are you that dumb? When I attended the first round game between George Washington & Vermont who was 29-0 at that time - Vermont brought more than 1K fans to the game which is very impressive considering the fact that it was in 1991. Whenever UVM won lots of games, its teams do attract more than 214 spectators. I know Inglese, Borton & Cieplicki, I think you did do them a bad service by assuming that they do not have fans that much - these people routinely brought 1 to 3K per game. I'm sure that if UConn played them, they would have more than 3K at the games. And it is funny thing that you claimed that Geno did not want to play in front of 214 fans but that's what he had been doing at Georgetown for many years - sometimes I went to McDonough Arena and it was less than 300 fans watching UConn dismantling Georgetown in early 1990s. UVM had better attendance figures than Georgetown at that time because the town loved these 3 coaches - Inglese, Borton & Cieplicki.

The truth is no, it has nothing to do with money. It has so much to do with the threat of being dethroned by someone else as the Queen of New England. UVM was a threat to UConn - which is why UConn refused to do the home-home series between 1988 and 2009. If UConn can do that to UVM, then I don't see why it would be a problem with ND, SC & Stanford to turn its back on UConn to severe its recruiting edges. After all, recruiting is also a game to many. It has been like that for many years - so if UConn can do that, so can they.

[Homyonkel]

[NickDMB]

[tfan]

[tfan]

[Homyonkel]

[ridor]

No, homyonkel, you have to stop shoving words into my mouth when I never said such a thing on my previous comments. I never said that UConn refused to do home-home games with Vermont Catamounts because he "feared" being replaced by UVM. I said that Geno does view UVM as a threat, not feared.

If UConn played against UVM at Burlington - they would have lost a couple of games there. Geno cannot afford to lose any game to any D! schools in New England states. He knew they were good, he knew they were a threat, he chose not to schedule them primarily because he does not see any benefit for UConn to play in Burlington and lose a game or two between 1990 and 1998. He knew by losing to UVM in Burlington presented a backyard threat.

I never said he was afraid of UVM - I'm saying that he was no better than other schools who chose not to play different teams that may present them as a threat and not beneficial to their programs. So hence the idiom: People who lives in glass houses should not throw stones! So you cannot defend UConn by going after Baylor, Virginia, Duke and Tennessee for doing the same thing that Geno did on UVM back then. Capisce?

[ridor]

Linkster, you said: "So what does a coach say to a prospective recruit when they ask her why she won't play UConn? Does the coach admit "they are too good so we are attempting to destroy them through a shunning?"

You need to wake up and face the reality - THIS is how it works in THIS SPORT. In fact, others had done the same thing for many years prior to the Debacle.

When Sue Gunter left Stephen F. Austin to be the Head Coach of LSU Tigers, Sue stopped the annual games between Louisiana Tech and LSU. It sets off the fiercely recruiting between two schools in Louisiana, Gunter noticed that Louisiana Tech has enormous advantage back then so Gunter curbed Leon Barmore's firm hold in Louisiana by rarely playing LSU. La Tech refused to play Arkansas and Mississippi State. When they saw Memphis & Ole Miss doing well in recruiting the region in east Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana - Louisiana Tech then abruptly stopped playing them for a long time.

Same thing happened to Long Beach State and Stanford. Coach Vanderveer arrived in Palo Alto in 1985, the very first thing she did was to discontinue the series against one powerful team in a weak conference: Long Beach State. Long Beach State was able to recruit in Southern California along with USC. Stanford terminated the series in order to build a new program - when the team is much stronger 5 years later, Tara resumed the series only to destroy and annihilate Long Beach State so much and so often enough for Joan Bonvinci to leave for Arizona.

So yes, many schools in CWB do practice this for many decades. So I know they will turn its back on UConn eventually. Just wait and you'll see that I was right all along.

[tfan]

[GlennMacGrady]

Well, since poor Katie Lou seems to have been jilted and abandoned in favor of strategies to hobble UConn, why not entertain the thought simply as an off season mind game.

[ClayK]

Just a note on VanDerveer: I don't know about the Long Beach State issue long ago -- and there are many factors that go into scheduling -- but TVD is very serious about playing Northern California schools and does so on a regular basis, when in fact those schools want to play Stanford. Surprisingly, at least to me, many do not. It seems like a win-win for Santa Clara, say, to play Stanford because there's nothing to lose with a loss and a tremendous amount to gain with a win.

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Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā