6. American Athletic Conference
Impact recruits: James Wiseman (Memphis), Boogie Ellis (Memphis), Precious Achiuwa (Memphis), Zach Harvey (Cincinnati), James Bouknight (UConn), Tremont Robinson-White (East Carolina)
The No. 1 recruiting class for 2019 goes to Memphis, who already had No. 1 overall prospect James Wiseman before the offseason signings. The Tigers benefitted from Boogie Ellis leaving Duke and landed him shortly after, before landing another five-star forward in Precious Achiuwa to cement their top-rank status. The question now will be whether head coach Penny Hardaway can translate the recruiting success to more wins for the program.
But Memphis wasn’t the only AAC program to do well with recruiting. Dan Hurley and UConn landed a pair of four-star guards in James Bouknight and Jalen Gaffney to eventually replace the often-injured upperclassmen players the Huskies currently have. Cincinnati was able to land top-50 prospect Zach Harvey, whose legal issues delayed his recruitment process.
East Carolina essentially had to replace their entire roster this offseason, bringing in 11 newcomers to the team. A few of them are JUCO commits, including top-tier point guard Tremont Robinson-White. Wichita State didn’t have that many newcomers themselves but do have a very solid six-man group that should pay dividends down the road.
The Tigers are the clear headliner for this class but the AAC overall did a fine job collectively, either from traditional recruiting or the transfer portal. With UConn leaving the league after this season, it’ll take a group effort to keep the conference viable to continually get 3-4 bids.