On Saturday night, in front of 35,446 frozen spectators, Syracuse beat Duke in their first-ever contest as conference rivals. It was a fun game — as should be expected when two historically significant programs get together to play college basketball. The morning after, all of the talk was about how grand and wonderful it is that conference realignment begat us such a gift.
Of course, that is a complete misnomer. At any point over the past decade or more, the two universities could have decided to play each other. One year at the Carrier Dome, the next at Cameron Indoor Stadium. There were undoubtedly a myriad of reasons why such a series never transpired, one of which being, with high-caliber early season tournaments each year, both schools could play big games against big schools without ever having to set foot in an unfriendly gymnasium. Duke did not play a single out-of-conference road game this season.
And really, who could blame them? The ACC conference is so loaded now, that scheduling a strong non-conference schedule is less important than running up your win total by hammering some cupcakes. Away games against North Carolina and Syracuse are Duke’s marquee road match ups of the season, and they have little to gain by taking the risk of playing good teams in front of hostile fans if they don’t have to.
All of which brings us to UConn. The Huskies were once in a similar position themselves. With the likes of Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Louisville on the schedule every year, it made sense to pack the early season with games against Central Connecticut State or Vermont. It gave the guys a nice warm-up (like a scrimmage at the end of practice), and almost guaranteed that even a modest showing in the conference would result in twenty or more wins in a season. To their credit, UConn and former coach Jim Calhoun rarely shied from a challenge, and managed several home-and-home series that were fantastic for the university, the fans, and the sport as a whole. Michigan State, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas all visited Connecticut over the years in memorable bouts.
UConn is still doing their part to uphold the tradition of a tough out-of-conference schedule. This season featured a very talented Florida team at Gampel Pavilion, Stanford visited the XL Center and UConn shipped out west to take on the fake Huskies of Washington before conference play started.
Those contests (as well as their early season neutral court games in New York) are more important than ever for UConn. Because of their relegation to the AAC, signature wins will be harder and harder to come by. Cincinnati and Memphis have a chance to develop into conference threats to UConn, but both teams have been up-and-down (to be generous) over the last several seasons. SMU has impressed this year and has a chance to grow under coach Larry Brown, but it’s just as likely they could descend back into mediocrity.
The best scheduling strategy for UConn going forward is to flip the traditional game plan. Now, they can get to their twenty wins in a season just by showing up for conference play — and frankly, if a UConn team loses more than three or four conference games next season or after, they probably won’t be that good regardless. Instead of looking for conference foes for resumé-padding wins, they should double-down on the non-conference schedule, filling it with marquee programs in their same tier nationally. Teams with a history and tradition that matches their own.
Honestly, a loss at Texas or at North Carolina is not much worse in the eyes of a tournament selection committee than a win at home against Loyola or Maine. And obviously the benefit of a win is much, much higher.
There are several other tangent benefits to this strategy. For one, it would allow the university and athletic director Warde Manuel to forge cordial relationships with schools in opposing conferences. When the musical chairs of realignment inevitably start up again, it would be nice to point to UConn’s success in hosting ACC or Big 10 schools — be it with ticket sales, television viewership, or otherwise.
A strong out-of-conference schedule would also help bolster UConn’s ticket sales. Naturally, a game against Arizona or Missouri would draw more fans than the 8,848 people who came to the XL Center in December to watch UConn take on Yale. Or the 9,497 that ventured to Hartford for the Loyola (Md) contest. The incredible atmosphere (and sell-out) of UConn’s game against Florida in Gampel should (and could) happen more often if good teams came to visit.
UConn is in a very strange place in their history. They can either continue in the same mold that made them so successful during their tenure in the Big East and either hope that a better conference comes calling — or accept their role as CEO of the AAC. Or they can take some risks and force the issue. For what it’s worth, this exact principle could also apply to the newly remodeled football program.
By loading up their schedule with top tier opponents, UConn would solidify their national reputation as one of them. Without the crutch of a good conference schedule to lean on, it’s a risk worth taking.
