AAC Basketball: Analyzing the 6 new potential additions for league

In recent months, the conversation of conference realignment has really exploded, with some big moves already in motion for the future of collegiate athletics. In addition to Oklahoma and Texas moving to the SEC, AAC basketball has recently seen Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF depart for the Big 12, helping to fill that absence. It’s too early to tell if this cycle of realignment will end up being as crazy as the one nearly a decade ago, but it’s clear that the effects are already wide felt with just a few early moves.

For the AAC, these departures create quite an issue for the conference moving forward. Those three teams are some of the best in basketball in the conference, not to mention their prowess in football as well. Losing Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF would take the AAC’s number of teams down to just eight and clearly necessitate adding a few teams. The conference not only needs to boost their numbers again but replace some of the talent and intrigue lost with these three programs.

Rumors have run rampant in recent weeks about potential additions to the AAC, though before now there was nothing concrete. There were a handful of MWC teams that seemed like potential fits, but each of those schools has doubled down on its commitment to the Mountain West. Recently, it’s appeared as if the AAC has turned in an entirely different direction to boost its numbers.

According to reports, there are a handful of Conference USA teams that could potentially join the ACC, with any or all of Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA leaving the C-USA. In a way, these additions would continue to turn the AAC into a reincarnated version of the old Conference USA, though it would significantly bolster the conference’s number of teams. Without giving away too much right now, we’re going to take a look at the case for each program and what they’d bring to the AAC.

Before we get into the profiles into the school, it’s important again to mention that any or all of these six schools could stay in Conference USA, and also that this might not be the end of talk with the AAC adding programs. One final note is that this entire article will solely focus on the basketball side of things; some of these programs might make sense from a football side more so, but that will not be discussed.