Don’t miss our first Bracket Racket of the season: https://hoopshd.com/2014/11/10/hoops-hd-bracket-racket-11092014/
The “power conferences” are allegedly defined as the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC. But don’t tell that to the American Athletic Conference. After all, as the AAC enters its second season, it is for the second time the home of the defending national champions. Of course, last year’s defending champion Louisville is now a member of the ACC . . . but no other conference out there can claim anything near the ratio of defending national champions to seasons of existence that the American can.
The AAC underwent a shift in membership this offseason with both Louisville’s exit as well as Rutgers heading off to join the Big Ten. The conference welcomes in three new members from Conference USA: East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa. While none of those three names conjure up ideas of top flight college programs, all three newcomers did play in the postseason last year, with East Carolina and Tulane both getting CBI bids while Tulsa won CUSA’s automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. Of the eight returning AAC schools, half were in the postseason as well, with Memphis and Cincinnati joining UConn in the Big Dance (Louisville was an NCAA team out of this conference as well last year) and SMU playing in the NIT where the Mustangs lost to Minnesota in the championship game.
This season, the American will definitely be a multiple bid conference, though we are currently predicting it to probably only have three teams, and no more than four, in the Dance. The top two teams appear, on paper, to be locks — SMU and Connecticut — while Tulsa, Memphis and Cincinnati all should at least be in the conversation for bids. The pick to win the conference title is Larry Brown’s SMU Mustangs. The Mustangs were mentioned at the start of the offseason as a potential Final Four pick when they landed star point guard recruit Emmanuel Mudiay. Mudiay then changed his mind and chose to spend the year playing pro basketball overseas, and everyone seemed to forget about this team. The fact is that Mudiay would have been a luxury on this squad, not a necessity. After all, Nic Moore was one of the top point guards in the conference last season and returns for his junior year. He is joined on the team by Markus Kennedy, Yanick Moreira, Justin Martin (from Xavier) and Jordan Tolbert (from Texas Tech) to make this still one of the deepest and most talented teams in the country, easily capable of winning the conference title this season.
Predicted Order of Finish:
1. SMU: Moore, Kennedy, Moreira, Martin, Tolbert and more make the Mustangs not only the best in the conference but good enough to make a deep run in March.
2. Connecticut: The Huskies look to reload in the post-Shabazz Napier era, though Ryan Boatright is still here. He will be joined in the backcourt by Rodney Purvis, while Amida Brimah and freshman Daniel Hamilton will both be solid players as well.
3. Tulsa: Frank Haith takes over for Danny Manning and will benefit from having most of last year’s NCAA tournament team back including Rashad Smith, James Woodard and D’Andre Wright. The Golden Hurricane should be in the mix for an an-large bid in their first AAC season.
4. Memphis: Shaq Goodwin and Austin Nichols give the Tigers a strong frontcourt, but there are some questions in the backcourt that need to be answered if Memphis wants to return to the NCAA tournament in March.
5. Cincinnati: With their top three scorers gone from last season, this could be a rebuilding year for the Bearcats. Shaquille Thomas will need to step up his game for any chance at success.
6. Tulane: With virtually all of their key players back from last season, the Green Wave have a chance to improve off of last season’s .500 record despite the move up to a tougher conference.
7. Houston: Jherrod Stiggers should be a solid player, but there is not much else here for Kelvin Sampson in his return to college coaching.
8. South Florida: Orlando Antigua takes over as head coach after Steve Masiello was hired . . . and then unhired. A rebuild project appears to be ahead, though both Chris Perry and Anthony Collins should put up good numbers.
9. Temple: Will Cummings and Quenton DeCosey combine for one of the conference’s top backcourts, but there are too many holes down low.
10. East Carolina: The move to the American and the loss of top scorer Akeem Richmond could make this a rough season for the Pirates.
11. Central Florida: The Knights have a solid, young core of players that could be dangerous as they develop and mesh together — just not this year.
Hoops HD Bracket Racket: 11/09/2014
The regular season officially gets underway this week, and this is the first of our regular weekly shows. Kyle, David and Lee take a look at the exhibition games, and discuss whether or not teams should be allowed to have open exhibition against other div1 teams, or against non college teams the way that they used to. We also discuss the 30 second shot clock as an experimental rule, and the potential effect it could have on the game if it is ultimately shortened at some point down the road. We preview this week’s games, and talk about whether or not it is a good thing that so many coaches of major programs like to ease into their season instead of playing a challenging opponent right off the bat. We also talk about North Carolina, the scandal they’re facing, and what impact that could have on their season. All of that, and much more!!
And for all you radio lovers out there, below is an mp3 of just the audio…..