Originally Posted by OSU Flyer
UConn's AD I think makes a very astute point there. Wright State has a practice facility, Rhode Island doesn't. According to URI's beat writer they were juggling with the women's basketball team and volleyball team for practice time. They're flying Southwest to some of there away games.
These kind of things were cited as some of things Hurley fought the program to upgrade during his time there
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Today UConn has a BB practice facility unmatched by any other school. What may surprise some is that the facility, Werth Family Championship Center, (or something like that), just opened in 2014. That means that none of Jim Calhoun's teams over his ~ 25 years had a practice facility. In Calhoun's time and Auriemma's, the men's and women's teams and the volley ball team shared Gampel Pavillion for practice, site of on-campus BB games.
Kind of amazing: No men's or women's teams were as successful as UConn's during the Calhoun/Auriemma era...a period in which there was no BB practice facility...in fact, all BB facilities were way below average. Didn't seem to hurt performance.
Finally, by 2014 UConn scraped together $40+ million for a men's/women's facility that has to be seen to be believed. For sure that impressed Hurley.
