But what about the other original members and Pitt who joined in 1982? How has life in the ACC and AAC treated these teams dreaming of football glory and riches?
Since leaving, Syracuse had a magical run to the Final 4 in 2016 as a 10-seed. A somewhat surprising at-large team, the Orange took full advantage of their opportunity. Outside that, things have been sticky. They put a self-imposed post-season ban in place in 2015 and we’re put on a scholarship limiting probation through 2019. They currently stand 45th in KenPom and are 2-4 in league with 3 winnable games ahead of them.
On the football field, little has changed. Despite upsetting Clemson early in the 2017 season, they were unable to capitalize and missed exhibition Bowl season once again. Within the league as a basketball school, Syracuse is still an outsider with no true rivalries. Even after starting 25-0 in their first year in the league and losing a memorable game at Duke, they haven’t developed a place in the league from where I sit. It’s possible for them to develop these rivalries but given geography and the allure of Tobacco Road, they’ll always be an ACC outsider.
During conference shuffling, UConn got left out in the cold and joined up with fellow rejects and formed the American Athletic Conference. Though the league has some historically good basketball schools, they also have Tulane and East Carolina and South Florida. Also, many of those historically good basketball schools are not very good at the moment.
Things started out well enough for the Huskies, winning their 4th title in 15 years in 2014 but things have fallen apart quickly. They fell to the NIT in 2015. They made it back to the tourney in 2016, making the round of 32. 2017 was a disaster from the get-go, losing at home to Wagner and Northeastern. Things in 2018 aren’t any better. The Huskies are 10-8 and coming off a shellacking at Memphis following an uninspiring 3-game win streak over hapless East Carolina, UCF and Tulane. They currently sit 157th in KenPom, just ahead of Canisius and just behind basketball power Marshall.
The football team has been largely a misfit, reaching back to Randy Edsall who had left them a few years back for Maryland. Dreams of joining the Big XII were scuttled when that league decided to stay at 10 teams. The best case scenario for UConn is joining the ACC or dumping football, a virtual non-starter and rejoining the Big East.
Fans and alum are split over the future of the athletic program and what direction it should take. For the moment, they’re stuck in a league they have no desire to be in and worse yet, not being a very good program. Their fall has been precipitous.
Finally, as bad as things are at UConn, it’s nowhere near as bad as it as Pitt. Pitt joined the Big East three years after the league formed but had a Big East identity as deep rooted as any of the other members. The move has been an unmitigated disaster.
Only Cal is worse than Pitt in KenPom out of all the Power 5 football leagues. They’re 208th! Worse yet, if you’ve seen any Pitt games, god bless you, the fans have been staying away in droves and apathy, long a problem for the football program has crept into the hoops program.
Pitt made the NCAA tourney 2 of the first 3 years they were in the ACC but the writing was on the wall for Jamie Dixon who took the TCU job following a brutal 47-43 loss to Wisconsin in 2016. Pitt made the uninspired hire of Kevin Stallings who was about to be run out of Vanderbilt. The Pitt basketball program has found depths not seen since before Ben Howland righted the ship in late 90’s and early part of the century.
Interestingly enough, vagabond schools such as West Virginia, Cincinnati and Louisville have all found some varying degrees of success outside the Big East breakup in football and basketball. And not to be forgotten, perennially punching bags South Florida and Rutgers continue their losing ways — though Rutgers has a crack at respectability.
What does this tell us? Maybe nothing. It’s only 5 years but sometimes, you need certain others more than they need you and the grass while greener in the pocket book, isn’t greener in results.
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