Come on. UConn didn't leave the Big East. The

Catholic schools left to create a non-football conference after the ACC poached the Big teams with good (or historically good) football teams. That left UConn and a few other schools as the last teams in the conference. UConn would have gladly joined the ACC at that point (and still probably would if they received an invite). UConn and the remaining Big East teams did the best they could under the circumstances. They sold the Catholic schools the Big East name and then formed a new conference with the remaining BE football teams and some teams lured from Conference USA.

And now they sit in purgatory. Their football team is probably the worst in the American, making them an undesirable target for P5 conferences. They need to be P5 so they can finance their other sports programs. In men's basketball, they are in a tough conference (which is good for them). In football, it's not that bad. But in WBB, the conference is bad. If UConn wasn't in the conference, no one would even talk about the American Conference in WBB circles. It would just be an upper (not top) mid-major conference.