With its bottom line "hurt by the collateral damage of the Big East’s breakup" in '13, UConn now is an "outlier in the American Athletic Conference, a patchwork of schools scattered across 10 states with nothing in common except exclusion," according to Brian Koonz of the CONNECTICUT POST. UConn does not "fit in one of the elite Power Five leagues ... despite their incessant lobbying," and with each passing year, the school "falls further behind in this new world order of big-time college athletics." Koonz: "It’s not enough to tread water in Storrs when the cash is drying up" (CONNECTICUT POST, 3/20).
SHOCKING MOVE? In Kansas, Bob Lutz wrote under the header, "NCAA Tournaments Prove Wichita State Has Outgrown The Missouri Valley." The MVC "isn’t helping WSU and its quest to reach the pinnacle of college basketball." There are rumblings that WSU is "interested in bolting" for the AAC and that the "infatuation is mutual." WSU would "obviously give the American, whose NCAA Tournament combatants this year are SMU and Cincinnati, a boost." And while the AAC "isn’t going to be confused with the power-six basketball conferences, it can make a strong case as the country’s seventh-best conference." Lutz: "Something is going to happen here quickly. I would be shocked if it has anything to do with football. There’s no future in football for Wichita State" (WICHITA EAGLE, 3/19).
