From men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun winning his third national title to President Susan Herbst's arrival and subsequent ousting of athletic director Jeff Hathaway, 2011 has been one of the most thrilling and tumultuous calendar years in UConn sports history.
Over the weekend, though, this much became clear: None of what has transpired over the past eight months is nearly as important -- both for the athletic department and the university as a whole -- as UConn's next move.
Late Friday night, reports began to swirl that Pittsburgh and Syracuse, UConn's rivals for the past three decades, were in talks to leave the Big East -- the conference in which UConn has grown up as an athletic department -- and join the Atlantic Coast Conference. By Saturday morning, CBSSports.com reported the two schools had applied for ACC membership, and by Sunday morning, the ACC had held a teleconference to announce they had both been unanimously voted in as the league's 13th and 14th members.
This weekend's moves could spell the demise of the Big East as a major player in college sports, if not the breakup of the conference all together. Only six football teams remain -- seven if you include Texas Christian University, which is scheduled to join the league next year. The conference is trying to pick up the pieces, but will be weakened at best and defunct at worst.
All this puts UConn in a pivotal position: With a choice between building on what the school has accomplished over the past 30 years or allowing itself to become a victim of circumstances. Herbst needs to to be proactive -- and to make as strong a case as possible to join Syracuse and Pitt in the ACC.
Herbst issued a statement Sunday morning, wisely making no firm commitment to staying in the conference.
"UConn is a proud charter member of the Big East and we have taken a lead role in the league's success over the years," she said. "However, it is my responsibility as President that we stay in constant communication and be actively involved in discussions with our counterparts from around the country to ensure the successful long-term future of our university's athletic program."
A UConn source told Hearst Newspapers' Rich Elliott on Sunday that UConn officials have made the ACC aware that they're interested, and that if the ACC called and offered membership, UConn would likely accept.
That's a good thing, and those calls should both continue and grow in intensity. UConn has a good case to make for ACC membership, and should make it as loudly and clearly as possible, given that the ACC will at least consider adding an additional two schools to bring its membership total to 16.
Were the ACC to add UConn, it would give the league extremely strong positioning in the New York media market, with UConn and Syracuse as its anchors and Duke, Boston College and others as major draws because of their large northeastern alumni bases.
Several media outlets even reported Sunday that the ACC would consider moving its annual conference basketball tournament to Madison Square Garden, where the Big East tournament has been a staple for decades.
The ACC would also get a school that, with its growing academic reputation -- its spot on the U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 20 public research universities in the country is not irrelevant -- would allow the league to argue it is adding to an academic reputation that, anchored by Duke, North Carolina and Virginia, is among the best in the country among major athletic powers.
Leaving the Big East, no matter the circumstances, would mean a melancholy change for anyone who has followed UConn's rise to national prominence over the past 25 years.
UConn has grown up in the Big East, Calhoun becoming an iconic figure in the northeast largely because of unforgettable games against the likes of Georgetown's John Thompson, Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and, more recently, Louisville's Rick Pitino and Pitt's Jamie Dixon.
Joining the Big East as a charter member in 1979 was one of the smartest and most significant decisions in UConn's history. It's the reason UConn has a nationally renowned athletic department and hasn't been relegated to middle-class stature like the other five New England state universities, all of which were the Huskies' peers in the Yankee Conference prior to the Big East's formation.
But the conference in which UConn grew up no longer exits.
It's possible that the remaining Big East teams could form an alliance with the remnants of the Big 12, which has already had three defections over the last year and is likely to have several more as Texas, Oklahoma and others ponder a move to the Pac 12. But that league would be more a collection of misfits than a powerful brand like the ACC, which, athletically and academically, would bolster UConn's reputation and leave it stronger going forward than it has been in the Big East.
If I'm UConn, I want to be associated with Syracuse, Boston College, North Carolina and Duke as an eastern powerhouse built on good basketball and good academics, not with the likes of Kansas, Iowa State, Baylor and Cincinnati -- schools joined only by having no other natural home.
If Herbst steers UConn into the ACC, the school will have an opportunity to enhance what it's built over the past 30 years athletically, academically and financially. If she doesn't, the athletic department's best years are likely behind it.
Reach Ben Doody at bdoody@ctpost.com or 203-522-8274. Follow him on Twitter @bendoody.
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