AAC Basketball: League missed great opportunity in NCAA Tournament

The American Athletic Conference had a great opportunity to get some much-needed credibility for themselves based on the results of this year’s NCAA Tournament. It didn’t work out that way.

In college football, there’s no mistaking the gap between the power five conferences and the “group of five”, which is their versions of mid-major leagues. It’s a bit different in basketball, with the historic Big East Conference viewed as an equal and to a lesser extent, the AAC.

But the conference isn’t widely regarded as top-tier, usually getting between 2-4 teams despite having 12 teams competing. With the exception of UConn’s national title a few years ago, there hasn’t been anything of note with this conference.

But the 2017-18 was setting up to be special, with the addition of Wichita State, a preseason top-10 team who had seven seniors to accompany an all-conference point guard in Landry Shamet. They joined another preseason ranked team in Cincinnati, who returned all of their top players from a year ago, including a great senior frontcourt.

The Huskies were also supposed to get healthy again, and Central Florida and SMU had tournament caliber rosters on their hands. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that as many as 5-6 could get bids, rivaling the other big conferences.

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But only three teams received bids – the Bearcats and Shockers, along with Houston led by 20 ppg senior guard Rob Gray Jr. Injuries derailed UCF and SMU, while inconsistent play took out both UConn and Temple, who had a couple of great non-conference wins.

The tournament is at the Sweet Sixteen stage, and no team from the AAC is still in. Wichita State was bounced out by Marshall in the first round, while Houston bowed out in the Round of 32 thanks to a buzzer-beater from Michigan.

Cincinnati was supposed to still be in, having a 22 point second-half lead against Nevada. But the Wolf Pack created the second biggest comeback in tournament history, knocking off the Bearcats.

What makes this experience particularly painful for the league is the number of departing seniors from the top teams. All three tournament teams will lose key players, leaving them nowhere near the talent level from this season. A return to the Big Dance is still possible, but Final Four aspirations aren’t likely.

As for the other teams, both Memphis and UConn are undergoing coaching changes, while none of the others look ready to make the jump next season.

Next: Ranking the Sweet Sixteen teams

There’s been a lot of talk and mockery about the failures of the Pac-12, and it’s certainly deserved. But I argue that the AAC, in fact, has been the biggest loser of the year’s big event. Because no teams mean no respect for a conference desperate for some.