AAC Basketball: Examining 8 potential candidates for expansion

Buffalo

A few years ago, a program like Buffalo certainly wouldn’t have been in the discussion to make a move like this. Fortunately for the Bulls, they’ve made major headway in both football and basketball in recent years and more success could be on the horizon. Though this success has only lasted for a few seasons, could they have outgrown the MAC and be ready for the challenge of the AAC?

An immediate positive for the Bulls is that recent success, though it’s fair to question how long that success continues. It began under basketball coach Nate Oats (now at Alabama) and football coach Lance Leipold (now at Kansas) and it remains to be seen how their successors will fare long-term. Buffalo, located conveniently in western New York, does seem to fall in the geographic footprint of the AAC, but does that really matter these days?

This isn’t the first and won’t be the last time Buffalo’s name is thrown around in these kinds of expansion discussions, with the recent success of the flagship programs paying major dividends. They’d slide right into the AAC and would immediately compete with the remaining teams in both of those sports. There are a number of directions the conference could go towards expansion, but adding the Bulls would be a pretty safe move to secure their numbers for the future.