The Buffalo Lion thread

[IMind]

You have nothing, nothing, nothing then...Tulsa!

This made me laugh.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Two points.
Fist, UMass. When I was applying to colleges in the early 90’s, UMass was equal or slightly ahead of UConn in stature. UConn was competing with UMass, UVM, UNH & URI for students. Today, UConn sports have turned into a national brand name and the state has poured money into the flagship school. I would not get into UConn today with the grades I had coming out of high school. UConn’s peers today are Syracuse, Rutgers, Maryland, etc. and graduates are proud to say that they went to UConn. UMass has withered on the vine and has to fight for every dollar of funding from Beacon Hill. UMass even has to compete for money with itself, i.e. UMass Boston, which is getting dorms soon, and UMass Lowell, which is jumping on the life sciences explosion around Boston and is upgrading to D1 not to mention its recent success on the rink. UMass is a good school; but, to the Boston elite or wannabe elites, it is a safety, something one does not brag about because that means your child did not get into an Ivy, a Little Ivy, even, heaven forbid, BC and BU. It also does not help that UMass is located in Amherst. While it is a great college town, a Bostonian’s sense of geography ends at I-495. Worcester is ‘far away.’ Springfield and the Pioneer Valley, which Amherst is part of, is out west ‘somewhere.’ Albany NY, just over an hour from the Massachusetts border, is out near the Pacific.
As for the Midwest, I completely agree based on my experience travelling throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois for work. Connecticut can fit entirely in Western Michigan and Hartford is about the size of Grand Rapids. It is hard for many to grasp the number of people crammed into Connecticut, how close it is to New York, Boston (and even DC), and how much money is concentrated in the state, especially Fairfield county (Hartford metro is not poor either). It is roughly 410 miles from Minneapolis to Chicago and not much is in between the two, just Madison. It is 440 miles between Boston and Washington DC with Hartford, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore in between. The only comparable area in the Midwest is the South Bend/Chicago/Milwaukee belt. Another challenge Connecticut faces is that it is a ‘small’ state with a population spread across too many, mid-size cities such as Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, and Stamford. Connecticut economically would have been much better off with just one major city, likely New Have due to its central location and that is a perfect distance to be connected to NYC; but, no overwhelmed by it.

 

[upstater]

I would not get into UConn today with the grades I had coming out of high school.

The big question though is, would a student from Michigan with your grades get into Uconn today? I'm betting YES--and then they'd pay $40k a year for the privilege of attending.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Two points.
Fist, UMass. When I was applying to colleges in the early 90’s, UMass was equal or slightly ahead of UConn in stature. UConn was competing with UMass, UVM, UNH & URI for students.

I don't believe this at all. When I applied in 1984, UConn was already easily the best public school in New England. Definitely well ahead of UMass, which was and is, ahead of the others. UMass hasn't been ranked higher than UConn at any time at least back to that point, nor has any other New England public. The gap has widened since then for sure, but UMass was not slightly ahead in the 90's.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I don't believe this at all. When I applied in 1984, UConn was already easily the best public school in New England. Definitely well ahead of UMass, which was and is, ahead of the others. UMass hasn't been ranked higher than UConn at any time at least back to that point, nor has any other New England public. The gap has widened since then for sure, but UMass was not slightly ahead in the 90's.

I do not recall the rankings back from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. My opinion is simply based on my perception of where my high school peers were applying to. I did travel to UConn, Syracuse, UNH, UMass and Delaware to look at schools and, to be fair, at that point the campus in Storrs was a dump outside of ‘new’ Gampel. It also did not help that Storrs is not a town, it is a zip code. Syracuse, Durham, Amherst, and Newark are all towns. That is an issue that UConn is just starting to address with ‘Storrs Center.’

 

[DarthGrumpy]

The big question though is, would a student from Michigan with your grades get into Uconn today? I'm betting YES--and then they'd pay $40k a year for the privilege of attending.

Good question. U Michigan, Northwestern, and ND at the academic benchmarks in the Midwest. Most folks I know with college age kids all applied to one of those and they used Michigan St, Indiana, Ohio State, etc. as back-ups. The academic stars used those as back-ups to Stanford, the Ivies, and the military academies. I only recall one person whose son looked at UConn from the Midwest.
Now, when I travelled for business in the NY/NJ/PA area, everyone I know talked of UConn as a top target or at least a fall back to an Ivy, Penn State, etc. unless they wanted to go to a smaller school.

 

[huskypantz]

Two points.
Fist, UMass. When I was applying to colleges in the early 90’s, UMass was equal or slightly ahead of UConn in stature .

You started off on the wrong foot, this statement is incorrect. I was looking at schools at the same time, UMass's average SAT's were much lower than UConn's.

 

[Durks07]

As a UConn fan that grew up in the state (didn't attend) but lives in MA, I think I fully understand where UConn, BC and UMass fall in New England Fandom. What bothers me is how the rest of the nation perceives New England.

If you are a Greater Boston Catholic and/or alumni of BC, you are a fan. After that, there are no BC fans.
As far as UMass, I see more UConn Bumper stickers an apparal in Boston on a daily basis. UMass barely registers.

Once again, BuffaloLion has our back. The following post was made by him yesterday after some posters speculated as UMass being the 16th team to the big ten and possibly UMass' upsidebeing as large as ours?!?!

I just hope he is as close an insider as they get, because I love when he says "we".

Uconn would be in the Big Ten today if they were an AAU school. I quoted yesterday Delany's statement that he wanted to own the New York City Metro "lock, stock, and barrel".

Rutgers was the first piece to the puzzle. They are an AAU school, and have the closest proximity to New York City. The state of New Jersey is EXTREMELY fertile recruiting grounds for football, basketball, and wrestling. Rutgers also, as strange as it may seem, also makes the Philadelphia media market more valuable to advertizers in that MUCH of the Philadelphia media market is in New Jersey. Rutgers is New York City's football school in that it gets higher ratings than anyone else. The combination of Rutgers and Penn State though still doesn't give Delany everything he wants. He also wants Basketball.

UConn would be the second piece to Delany's New York City's puzzle. UConn has the highest television basketball ratings of any New York City area school including St Johns BY FAR. And it's football program, if given the right funding, could be a sleeping giant.

The feeling is, with Rentschler Field being so centralized to all of New England, that it could carry all of New England for the Big Ten. Portland Maine is about the same distance to Rentschler Field in East Hartford as Philadelphia is to Beaver Stadium at Penn State. Boston is closer to Storrs than Harrisburg is to State College. Geographically, more of Massachusetts is closer to UConn's campus than it is to BC's campus. Unlike Boston College, there is next to NO in-state competition for rooting loyalties with the very minute exception of Yale.

You ask about UMass. One of the things the Big Ten loves about UConn is the incredible support they get from their state Government and state representitives in their efforts to obtain AAU status. I'll put a link below illustrating some of the support they have been getting. On the other hand, UMass has to literally BEG for money.

Whereas UConn's campus and buildings are well maintained, and their research efforts STRONGLY supported, UMass has a campus that scrapes for every dime to keep its buildings from falling down. UMass is looked at by it's own state's residents as a "fall back" institution, and that's how it is treated by the state.

The brightest in-state kids from Massachusetts apply to the Big Ten schools and Ivy League schools, willing to pay more money, because they think they will get a better education there. They apply to UMass as a fall back option in case they don't get accepted anywhere else.

UConn has had a 70% increase of students from Massachusetts in the last decade whereas UMass has seen a MINUS 5.5% dropoff of Connecticut students enrolling at UMass. The UMass administration realized a few years ago that not having a Division One football team was killing them. The elite in-state students that wanted good academics, but were also sports fans (meaning they wanted an Ivy League quality education that included big time college sports) were gravitating to the Big Ten schools and UConn.

In short, UMass has fallen galaxies behind UConn in both academics and athletics. The Big Ten looks at UConn as a sleeping giant that has VERY FEW negatives. One of course is that even though they are far above UMass academically, they are still not officially an AAU school. But we ARE VERY impressed with their efforts in trying to obtain that status.

As promised, here is a statement by their governor stating his support, both verbally and financially, to UConn's impressive state endorsed research efforts.

Where did he post this? Link?

 

[tzznandrew]

Whether he is right or not, it's a perception thing. I graduated a crappy Waterbury high school in 2002. When I started HS, UConn was a relatively bright kid's safety school; when college acceptance letters went out in 2002, all of the relatively bright kids were rejected.

Did it change? Maybe not. But it felt like it.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I do not recall the rankings back from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. My opinion is simply based on my perception of where my high school peers were applying to. I did travel to UConn, Syracuse, UNH, UMass and Delaware to look at schools and, to be fair, at that point the campus in Storrs was a dump outside of ‘new’ Gampel. It also did not help that Storrs is not a town, it is a zip code. Syracuse, Durham, Amherst, and Newark are all towns. That is an issue that UConn is just starting to address with ‘Storrs Center.’

Hell it was gorgeous by the early 90's compared to 1984. They had even paved the path to Arjona and Monteith (where you used to find many shoes in the mud after the thaw). The town is of course, very limited. It will remain so, even with Storrs Center. But in my opinion, the result was a campus that was much more close-knit than one expects at a major public U. But as stated by another poster, UConn admissions was more selective than UMass, even then.

 

[RMoore1999]

Can I send him an edible arrangement?

"edible arrangement"??

I'd pay good money to subsidize someone like HFD to pay a visit to Susan's boudoir to snatch up a pair of her panties to send on to BuffaloLion as a little thank you dessert if he could get Mr. Delaney to buy in and then act accordingly.

 

[Hoophound]

"edible arrangement"??

I'd pay good money to subsidize someone like HFD to pay a visit to Susan's boudoir to snatch up a pair of her panties to send on to BuffaloLion as a little thank you dessert if he could get Mr. Delaney to buy in and then act accordingly.

Yikes.

 

[MTHusky]

I don't think the "Buffalo Lion" is Upstater but none other than Mr. Delany putting out all the pluses in inviting us into the B1G for all of the conference members to digest while he appears to them to be neutral. One can hope anyways.

 

[MarbleheadHusky]

For some reason the link is not working. If someone can help, it would be much appreciated.

It is on the West Virginia Scout Board / Forums / Forum List / Big 12 Conference Talk - The name of the tread is "Which Topic Had the UConn Links"

 

[Durks07]

For some reason the link is not working. If someone can help, it would be much appreciated.

It is on the West Virginia Scout Board / Forums / Forum List / Big 12 Conference Talk - The name of the tread is "Which Topic Had the UConn Links"

Found it...thank you, and the link won't work for me either.

 

[pj]

Let me try: http://mbd._cout.com/mb.aspx?s=159&f=4582&t=11492843

Replace the _ with an s.

 

[upstater]

Good question. U Michigan, Northwestern, and ND at the academic benchmarks in the Midwest. Most folks I know with college age kids all applied to one of those and they used Michigan St, Indiana, Ohio State, etc. as back-ups. The academic stars used those as back-ups to Stanford, the Ivies, and the military academies. I only recall one person whose son looked at UConn from the Midwest.
Now, when I travelled for business in the NY/NJ/PA area, everyone I know talked of UConn as a top target or at least a fall back to an Ivy, Penn State, etc. unless they wanted to go to a smaller school.

I basically meant that it's now easier to get into UConn with out-of-state grades than it is to get into it with in-state grades, because there's $20k more in cash for the university. So, measuring a school according to how popular it is outside the state needs to take this into consideration. All around the country, kids are choosing public schools out of state because they are being admitted and can afford the out-of-state tuition. This means that seats are being taken away from in-state kids.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I don't believe this at all. When I applied in 1984, UConn was already easily the best public school in New England. Definitely well ahead of UMass, which was and is, ahead of the others. UMass hasn't been ranked higher than UConn at any time at least back to that point, nor has any other New England public. The gap has widened since then for sure, but UMass was not slightly ahead in the 90's.

I don't know if it was well ahead of UMass at that time but it was ahead of UMass. The bulk of the people I knew from when I was an undergrad (late 70's-early 80's) who chose UMass over UConn when there was a choice did so because they were able to live on campus immediately (back then, it was almost impossible to attend Storrs, not a branch for at least your freshman year if you lived close to a UConn branch).

One thing Conehead was wrong about was URI. While UNH & Vermont had very similar (and at times better) academic status than UConn from the mid 70's to mid 90's, I've known many CT residents who attended URI solely because they could not get into UConn (and in some cases, a few other New England schools).

 

[Hoophound]

I don't know if it was well ahead of UMass at that time but it was ahead of UMass. The bulk of the people I knew from when I was an undergrad (late 70's-early 80's) who chose UMass over UConn when there was a choice did so because they were able to live on campus immediately (back then, it was almost impossible to attend Storrs, not a branch for at least your freshman year if you lived close to a UConn branch).

One thing Conehead was wrong about was URI. While UNH & Vermont had very similar (and at times better) academic status than UConn from the mid 70's to mid 90's, I've known many CT residents who attended URI solely because they could not get into UConn (and in some cases, a few other New England schools).

Yeah, URI was easy to get into. I had a very hot girlfriend from NYC that went there. She was amazing in so many ways but reading and writing were not two of them.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Yeah, URI was easy to get into. I had a very hot girlfriend from NYC that went there. She was amazing in so many ways but reading and writing were not two of them.

Mathematician?

 

[rocky rococo]

OT RE:

Gold Buffalo lion's gonna tell me where the light is,
Gold Buffalo lion's gonna tell me where the light is,

I remember when the only YYYs music available was a 4-song cassette demo (I had it). Now it seems half their songs are soundtracks to commercials. Never would have predicted that from the raw DIY rock and roll on that early cassette.