In June of last year, the UConn Board of Trustees accepted an offer to rejoin the Big East in all sports except hockey and football, which are not sponsored by the conference.
This is something that many fans have been waiting a long time for, perhaps since they left the conference in 2013. Sure maybe not everyone wanted them to join the “new” Big East; some probably would have preferred if they joined the ACC along with former conference member Syracuse. This is a massive deal, especially when you consider what it means for their women’s basketball team.
UConn left the Big East in the summer of 2013, this was right after they had just won what was their 8th national title in women’s basketball and even though they didn’t know it at the time, it was the first of what would be four straight with standout Breanna Stewart on the team. When they left, they ended up in the American Athletic Conference, AAC, a conference where the most prominent school other than UConn is probably the University of Central Florida, a school that only really has a presence in college football.
Since Geno Auriemma’s Huskies have been playing in the AAC, they have won every regular-season and tournament title and are undefeated in conference play. In the last seven seasons, there have been very few teams that could stand against them. They’ve only lost nine games since moving, and all have been against teams ranked in the top ten at the time. Of these losses, three were in overtime, and three were in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament. In other words, when UConn joins the Big East next season, they will be bringing the top caliber of competition to a conference that hasn’t received much attention in the last few years. This level of competition means that even though UConn will dominate for the next couple of years. Teams that are currently towards the bottom of Big East standings like Georgetown, Providence, and Xavier are going to be forced to rise to the challenge if they even want a chance at a conference title.
Another significant change that comes with UConn’s reentry is the quality of recruits that the Big East can expect. For the 2020-21 season, Geno Auriemma has what is officially the second-best recruiting class in the nation. This includes Paige Bueckers, who is the #1 prospect in the country, which makes this the fourth time in six years that they’ve signed the top prospect. The other three being current players Megan Walker and Christyn Williams, and guard/forward for the Dallas Wings Katie Lou Samuelson. As has been the case in the past decade, you either want to play for Geno and his team or to play against them. This mentality is going to be what brings more top prospects to the Big East. Currently, of the top 100 recruits in the 2020 class, none have signed to Big East teams that aren’t Connecticut.
Currently, parity in the Big East is almost nonexistent. The teams at the top of the table are so far above the teams at the bottom that its almost laughable. The only true parity comes from those running in the middle of the pack, where everyone is within one game of the person above or below them. But even the team at the very top, DePaul, isn’t a powerhouse in the world of women’s college basketball, ranked only at 13 in the Feb. 10 AP poll despite their 22-3 record. UConn’s reentry will add another team to the top to join the like of DePaul, Butler, and Marquette.
So what’s it going to look like when Connecticut is actually in the Big East. In the seven years since leaving, they’ve faced off against Big East teams 11 times. In these 11 games, they’ve won all of them by at least 10 points with their largest margin of victory being 45 points against DePaul in 2016. While more of these large margin victories are definitely on hand for Geno and his team, you will also see them pushed to a limit that they don’t get to playing against AAC teams. The last time a current Big East team beat UConn was in 2012 when St. Johns beat them 57-56. That was eight years ago when St. Johns was near the top of the rankings, but now in 2020, they float towards the middle of the pack. Next year’s Big East isn’t going to look like the conference from the years past. These teams aren’t just going to let Connecticut steamroll over them, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but it will get better, and eventually, UConn will have a really rough time staying at the top.