Lack of Competition Hurting Women’s Basketball.

Lack of competition hurting Women’s basketball.

UConn’s move to the American Athletic Conference is hurting the UConn Women’s Basketball team and Women’s College Basketball. The UConn Huskies are #1 in the country, they are currently 13-0, they’ve won 50 straight games, and three straight national championships. You may ask, how in the world has the move to the AAC hurt the UConn Women’s Basketball team?

The Breakup of the Big East

At the beginning of the 2013-2014 season, the Big East conference split, creating a new Big East and the American Athletic Conference. This shift was based mostly on the fact that some schools in the former Big East had football and some didn’t. UConn, unfortunately, decided to put more support in their football team than in their Basketball teams and made the move to the new AAC. This shift had nothing to do with increasing level of competition and in no way helped the UConn Women’s Basketball team.

The former Big East had been known as a power conference in Men and Women’s Basketball. Since 2000, the Big East had crowned 5 National Champions in UConn, Syracuse, and Louisville on the Men’s side and 10 National Titles between Notre Dame and UConn on the Women’s side. Whereas the rest of the teams that make up the AAC haven’t sent a team to the Final Four on the Men’s or Women’s side in the 2000’s. The majority of the AAC was comprised of teams from Conference USA, a lower level conference. The Big East also went through a change due to the split. The Big East took on more teams from the Midwest in Butler, DePaul, Xavier and Creighton.

This year, on the Women’s side, the Huskies are #1 in the nation again. The AAC only has one other Top 25 team, the #22 10-3 South Florida. Beyond these two teams, Tulane (11-4) is the only other team with more than 10 wins so far on the season. The Big East also has only two Top 25 teams with #24 DePaul (12-5) and #25 Seton Hall (13-2), but St. John’s (12-3) and Xavier (12-3) are not far behind. UConn has been the top team in the Big East and now the AAC on both the Men’s and Women’s side for the last 20 years. The UConn Women’s team is 13-0, with a weak conference schedule, the Huskies really only have one test left on their schedule, a game against #2 South Carolina on February 8th. This lack of competition may help UConn go unbeaten into the tournament, however it also could set them up to be beaten by a team who has faced tough competition in conference play.

Where should UConn go?

At the time of the split, UConn did make a plea to other conferences to include them, but the ACC chose the take schools with a stronger football presence in Notre Dame and Syracuse. Last year the Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby denied rumors that they were looking to expand saying “the conference would not expand by two programs just to have 12 teams, as that would be a poor reason." The Big Ten stole Maryland from the ACC and took on Rutgers who was also looking for a football conference other than the Big East.

Travel can often be pointed at as a concern for schools switching conferences, however travel is bad for every team. Think of the Pac-12 Conference, teams like Washington regularly fly to Arizona or Southern California to play their games. The (UConn) Huskies travel is just as troublesome now, going to South Florida, SMU (in Dallas, Texas) and Houston.

The non-conference schedule gave us a glimpse of what life would be like in a more fitting conference. The win over DePaul tested the Huskies for a while, but Cincinnati was not a match, so I don’t believe the new Big East is the right place. 40 point wins over Ohio State and Nebraska show that the Big Ten isn’t ready for UConn, even with #6 Maryland giving the Huskies their most competitive game of the year. The SEC has become a very strong conference behind 14-0 South Carolina, as well as (current) #7 Mississippi State, #10 Kentucky, #12 Tennessee, #13 Texas A&M and #20 Missouri. However, UConn beat LSU by 46 points without their top player Breanna Stewart.

Why not play a conference schedule where they could suffer a loss when they take a player like Morgan Tuck out of the lineup? I think the ACC is a logical and challenging place for UConn.

The ACC has football, so that meets the need for UConn Football. Notre Dame was #3 in the nation when the Huskies beat them by 10 points and has been UConn’s biggest rival in the last 5 years. The ACC has twelve 10 win teams currently, with Duke and Florida State in the Top 25 and Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Miami, Louisville all close behind. This challenging schedule, would make the Huskies even stronger, battle testing them for the tournament. The ACC consists of many old Big East rivals like Syracuse and Boston College. The ACC has many teams that would create less travel than the AAC. The AAC just doesn’t offer the Huskies the difficulty they need in their regular season schedule.

Why should the NCAA want UConn to move to the ACC?

Focusing on Women’s Basketball, the lack of parody in the NCAA ranks is hurting the growth of the game.

UConn has won three straight national championships, they have won 9 of the last 15 national championships, and they’re going to win again in 2016. How do I know? Because winning breads winning. UConn recruits the best players in the country year after year. Why? Because players know they will continue to win, and who wouldn’t want to play on the team that is guaranteed to be in the Final Four every year? In 2014, UConn added the 4th ranked recruiting class by ESPN. In 2015, UConn got top recruit Katie Lou Samuelson and 2 other Top 25 Freshmen (Collier and Boykin) as well as Natalie Butler, a transfer from Georgetown who had to sit out 2014-2015. UConn consistently brings in a top 5 recruiting class every year.

New fans may be turned off to the fact that only one team wins every year. How do the other 200+ Division 1 schools compete and encourage fans to watch? There’s no guarantee the Huskies won’t win the National Championship if they play in the ACC and in fact, it may make them stronger. In a tougher conference, they will be more battle tested for the big games at the end of the year. However, they may go 36-4 instead of 40-0 or 39-1. This parody may help other teams compete for those top recruits again.

I believe this parody will also help raise interest in the Women’s game. UConn’s games, whether in Storrs or Hartford or on the road are always packed, they have a great fan base. However, many teams know they can’t compete with UConn and also struggle to bring in a fan base when they lose to UConn by 40 points. Florida State saw first-hand what UConn’s reputation can do for attendance. In games against Rutgers, BC, and Temple, Florida State averaged 2,700 fans. However, when the Huskies came to town, the attendance was 8,157.

If more teams each year that had a true chance to compete for the national title, more fans could be drawn to regular season conference games. Teams like Florida State may draw more fans for those Rutgers, BC and Temple games, rather than just when UConn heads to Tallahassee. Fans want to see competitive games between two great teams. Fans want to root for a team that has a chance to win. For the last 4 years, only Husky fans have had that opportunity.

Follow Kyle Wescott on Twitter @MHSWescott