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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 684427, member: 289"] The point is we will be competing with schools that already have had the resources and have legacies of their own. If we get off to a bad start in the conference, we will be behind them. Here is the precedent that worries me: The best basketball program in the east in the 60's and 70's was Providence. Joe Mullaney and Dave Gavitt were great coaches. Lenny Wilkens, Johnny Egan, Jimmy Walker, Jim Larranaga, Ernie DiGregorio and Marvin Barnes were great players. They had records like 24-2, 27-4, 28-4. They went to a Final Four when eastern teams rarely amd eit that far and might have won if Barnes hadn't gotten hurt. They won a couple of NITs when that meant something. As late as 1977-78 they were 24-8, their 17th 20 win season in 20 years, when that also meant something. Gavitt was the cataylist for creating the new conference and became it's Commissioner. League headquarters were in Providence and the next two commissioners after Gavitt were also Providence guys. The Friars should have been one the league's powerhouses. But they had a downturn at exactly the wrong time. They went 10-16 in Gavitt's last year and 11-16 and 0-6 in the first year of the conference. The next year they were 10-18 and 3-11. They brought Mullany back but he couldn't turn it around. Pitino did briefly but left for greener pastures. Rick Barnes and Pete Gillen were prominent coaches but the Friars were a middle of the road team at best during their tenures. Providence just never got back to where they were. There may have been other factors but I've always thought it hurt them to be bad at just the wrong time: when the new conference was getting started. Recruits were interested in the conference but looked at the standings and decided they didn't want to go there. And it proved such a strong conference that if you weren't a good team, the conference schedule would drive you into the floor like a hammer would a nail. It's just hard to get up off the canvas in a tough conference where you keep getting hit as you try to get up. If we got off to that kind of a start in football in the ACC, it could have the same impact. I don't think we will, but I think the stakes are higher than you realize. [/QUOTE]

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