AAC Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2020-21 season

ORLANDO, FL - MARCH 11: The AAC Championship trophy to be presented to the Cincinnati Bearcats after the final game of the 2018 AAC Basketball Championship against Houston Cougars at Amway Center on March 11, 2018 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** /

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MEMPHIS, TN – FEBRUARY 22: Marcus Sasser #0 of the Houston Cougars drives to the basket for a layup against Tyler Harris #1 of the Memphis Tigers (Photo by Joe Murphy/Getty Images) /

With now under two months away from the return of college basketball, how does AAC Basketball look heading into the season?

After a wildly disappointing end to the 2020 college basketball season, basketball is quickly approaching again. While it may look and feel a little bit different with little to no fans in the stands, drastic schedule changes, and different precautions in place, it’s still going to be college basketball and we can’t wait.

The end of last season feels like an eternity ago so let’s recap what went on in AAC Basketball prior to the sudden ending. Cincinnati won the regular-season title in a three-way tie with Houston and Tulsa and was set to start the AAC tournament with the number one seed.

That AAC tournament never happened. Basketball fans were left with a lot of wondering as championship season was canceled, we never really got to find out who the best team in the AAC really were, we missed out on what would have been a great conference tournament.

Turning the page as we hope for a return to some normalcy, this AAC basketball season sets up to be a good one. Quite a bit happened in the offseason with a mass exodus at Wichita State, one of the conferences top players arrested on a murder charge, and quite a few players moving on via the transfer portal or the NBA draft. Oh, and we can’t forget about UConn leaving for the Big East.

The top of the AAC has the familiar names of Houston, Memphis, and Cincinnati but like last season with Tulsa, you never know who’s lurking around the corner. I did my best to rank the teams heading into the season and I’ll continue to update the rankings after the season gets underway.

Just a disclaimer, I’ve gone ahead and assumed that all of the transfer waivers that have been put in have been accepted, based on what’s happened so far it appears that most of the transfers are going to end up with their waiver. Without further ado, here we go.