I guess I can't tell if it's a fair amount of people or the same few people saying the same thing - but the "Dan's fake, he never cared, he's a snake oil salesman, he's all about the money" narrative has been on the board plenty. I don't view it as a mischaracterization so much as maybe a vocal minority is pushing that narrative more than the majority of the board.TruePoint wrote:I don't agree with the mischaracterizations of what people here have been saying. Nobody said Dan's emotions after the Duke game were "phony" and very, very few people have criticized him for his getting technical fouls or minimized his accomplishments - and the few people that have done that were doing that WELL BEFORE he took the UConn job and have always had a hair across their ass for Dan.Blue Man wrote:I honestly didn't think this was that bad of a take.
I also think UConn fans are delusional with the way they view their own program. I know Storrs is a godforsaken backwater outpost, but is it really still 2010 there? If UConn were still in a league with Syracuse, Villanova, Louisville, etc., then theirs would be one of the best 5-10 jobs in the country. Times change, my man. UConn is in a basketball league with East Carolina and Tulane. It finished behind Central Florida in the standings. It has to play conference road games in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. UConn is still a good job and the right coach can have it at the top of their conference rather quickly. The reality is that from a perks and compensation and brand perspective it offers things that URI cannot, but those things are the remnants of another time and will not always be true. They now live in a basketball world much more similar to URI's than to their old Big East contemporaries. They are very fortunate that one of the best up-and-coming coaches in America had his view of their program formed at a time when it was truly an elite program, but that doesn't change any of what I just said.
UConn fans are most-certainly delusional with how they view their program (i.e. still thinking it's 2010, firing a coach who won them a title within a recruiting cycle, etc), but it's fair to say we've been delusional in how we characterized UConn as well.
The conference doesn't make the team - clearly - or URI wouldn't be having a debate about program status with a team from any other multi bid league. Very obviously the gap between AAC and A10 is not far at all. Their top 2 "elite" teams are better than our top 2 "elite" teams, traditionally, but the gap isn't that far. This season I think URI/Bonnies would've split a series between themselves and Cinci/Houston. The floor of our league is lower than the floor of the AAC, and the middle could go either way depending on the year.
Also, if UConn is in that "shitty" of a conference if we want to think of it like that - than it would be really easy for Dan to get to the top of that conference and dominate it in a few short years. Not exactly like having to fight from the bottom in the ACC. Easier path to the NCAA's like that than having to go up against Duke, UNC, Virginia, Syracuse, and others every year.
Whether you want to talk about "brand" or whatever - UConn has 3 things we physically do not have.
1) a ridiculous practice facility that provides a competitive advantage (practices and 24/7 gym access for players) and recruiting advantage over anyone else in the region. 2) private, chartered jet hours for recruiting trips. (It probably isn't common knowledge that Dan had to bum rides with another local coach on his plane for some recruiting trips to the same area, but yeah we can still think things like that don't matter). 3) On that jet he can have Ray Allen, Rip Hamilton, Kemba Walker, Shabazz, Emeka Okafor, or any other set of recent alums who are/were NBA stars come and hit the trail with him to go get top 25 guys.
We will most definitely be a better team than UConn next year and the year after - but obviously if Dan is staring his dream job in the face, he's looking at much longer than 2 years.
I have a feeling both us and UConn will be dominating their respective conferences for the forseeable future - so as I continue to rock my emotions back and forth - it's hard for me to see our situation as dire or being pissed about Dan moving on.