Coming November 2, 2037, ESPN 30 for 30 Presents "Who-Conn"
This is a story of program that achieved prominence very quickly in the 1990's and 2000's but died nearly as quickly due to number of internal and external forces. A team with 4 fairly recent national titles that today is largely forgotten by college basketball fans.
UConn basketball became a powerhouse program under Jim Calhoun in the early 1990's until his departure in 2012, a period that included several Big East conference and 4 national titles. But at the end of Calhoun's reign things in the NCAA were rapidly changing, and while UConn players and alumnus were active in police blotters, they were not very active in the minds of conference commissioners who were changing the framework of power conferences.
UConn soon found themselves on the outside of the newly aligned power conferences. National titles in 2011 and 2014, that many noted as "fluky" and "lucky", temporarily hid the problems that were brewing in the background. A nearly financially bankrupt program, a poor football team, and a corrupt ploy by the board of directors to oust a coach, soon coincided with extremely poor play in a mid-tier conference. Things were down in Storrs - on and off the court.
UConn took one last stab to get back its national prestige -- a return to the Big East. A return that failed miserably as the program never finished higher than seventh in its eight year run in the conference. During this time the program was marred by two ugly incidents of a former out of control coach -- including an attempted fight with a 12 year old fan and an even more serious situation where he attempted to light an elderly fan on fire via a match and lighter fluid. As the team continued to lose money due to a poor fan and donor base, resources and facilities crumbled. They were now a laughingstock -- for the few who even noticed them. When, due to corruption and negligence, a star Big East player was seriously hurt at one of its facilities the Big East had no choice but to vote them out of the conference.
UConn now is a member of the Northeast conference among teams like Bryant, Monmouth, Central Connecticut St. and Rutgers. A far cry from its glory days with Louisville, Syracuse, Villanova, and Georgetown. Instead of national titles, UConn is now content to fight for 15 and 16 seeds... a goal which they almost reached last year when they had their best finish -- 3rd -- in its 10 years in the Northeast Conference.
