Here we go again.
When UConn first joined the AAC the mantra was: the team won't be prepared for the NCAA tournament playing in such an easy conference.
After UConn won four straight National Championships (3 while in the AAC) the mantra became: it's unfair that UConn has a chance to rest during it's conference season (even though the AAC travel was brutal and UConn played ranked non-conference teams in Jan and Feb).
Then, after UConn failed to win a championship since 2016 we were back to hearing that the conference schedule isn't tough enough to prepare for the rigors of the Final Four.
But wait, last season we began to hear from fans of other teams that UConn's conference schedule allows it to "rest and recover" before the tournament and that is so, so unfair.
Now we're back to the conference schedule isn't tough enough.
Like I always say, It's tough to keep up.
I was looking for the "100 likes" button for this post, but apparently it hasn't been added yet.
These narratives reflect IMO a psychological urge to pin the blame for past or future losses on external factors outside of UConn's control. I suppose deep down this is a comfort to some, as it implies we were/are the primarily a victim of circumstance, rather than having the agency to take full credit/blame for our wins/losses.
Last year, UConn traveled to Arkansas and lost. Predictably, up sprang a panicked thread: "
Has playing in the [whatever conference]
caught up to UConn?" In other words: "Surely it can't be our team's fault for losing! It's the crappy conference we're stuck in!" As if UConn, in a dreamed-up scenario where they were an SEC team and this game had been an SEC contest vs. Arkansas, would have surely won instead.
The OP brought up the 2012-13 season. Well, believe it or not, the team that played the toughest SOS that season wasn't UConn or any other Big East team. It was Baylor, who played 5 top-10 opponents in the nonconference plus a then-very respectable Big 12 slate. But that tough schedule didn't immunize Baylor against a stunning Sweet 16 loss to a 5 seed.
Another team that didn't seem to benefit from their tough schedule that season was Notre Dame, who not only played the same "tough" Big East conference as UConn but ran the table in it. But guess what, that didn't immunize Notre Dame against a poor performance in the national semifinals, against a team they'd already beaten 3 times.