http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/sports/ncaabasketball/left-behind-uconn-ponders-starting-over-again.html?src=recg
Connecticut is not eligible to play in the Big East men’s basketball tournament, which begins Tuesday, nor can it qualify for next week’s bigger national show. It would still be fitting for the Huskies to be at Madison Square Garden for the conference finale Saturday night, if only for the purpose of turning out the lights.
The party as we have known it is not only soon to be over, but Connecticut — the least desired of seven charter members to inaugurate the conference in 1979 — faces what could be a messy and muddled cleanup as the university left behind.
“Frankly, when the league formed, nobody really wanted Connecticut, nobody but Dave Gavitt,†said Mike Tranghese, who served 11 years under Gavitt, the founding commissioner, and for 19 more after succeeding him in that role. “Only Dave had an idea of what that school could become, but I don’t know if even he could have envisioned what they actually have done.
“In my 30 years, I’ve always considered what Connecticut accomplished, how far it came athletically and academically, to be the most significant individual thing. And now, in the end, they wind up a victim, in a way standing alone, and I don’t know if there is any rational explanation for it.â€
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