We are growing ever closer to the American Athletic Conference tournament, which means it’s time to take another look at how the AAC tournament is shaping up. First, we’ll give you the projected bracket. I’m using the tiebreakers here just to make things more official.
Championship Schedule
First Round – Thursday, March 12
- Game 1: 3:30pm ESPNU – #8 seed EAST CAROLINA vs #9 seed CENTRAL FLORIDA
- Game 2: 6pm ESPNews – #7 seed TULANE vs #10 seed SOUTH FLORIDA
- Game 3: 8pm ESPNews – #6 seed CONNECTICUT vs #11 seed HOUSTON
Quarterfinals – Friday, March 13
- Game 4: Noon ESPN2 – #1 seed SMU vs Winner Game 1
- Game 5: 2pm ESPN2 – #4 seed MEMPHIS vs #5 seed CINCINNATI
- Game 6: 7pm ESPNU – #2 seed TULSA vs Winner Game 2
- Game 7: 9pm ESPNU – #3 seed TEMPLE vs Winner Game 3
Semifinals – Saturday, March 14
- Game 8: 3pm ESPN2 – Winner Game 4 vs Winner Game 5
- Game 9: 5pm ESPN2 – Winner Game 6 vs Winner Game 7
Championship Game – Sunday, March 15
- Game 10: 3:15pm ESPN – Winner Game 8 vs Winner Game 9
Using the tiebreakers, the first of which is head to head, give Memphis and Tulane advantages over Cincinnati and East Carolina. The biggest advantage is to Tulane, who bumps up to the 7 seed to face South Florida instead of being the 8 seed and facing UCF, who swept them.
The Memphis/Cincinnati tiebreaker is ultimately meaningless for now, because the teams meet each other again during the regular season. What could come into play are possible three team tiebreakers with Memphis, Cincinnati and Temple (if they all lost equally) or a 4 team tiebreaker where Connecticut beats Memphis and Temple, while Memphis beats Cincinnati, and the Huskies ran the string with victories. That would give all four teams 6 league losses and create a mini-division tiebreaker.
SMU will eliminate every 5 loss team (Temple, Memphis, Cincinnati) from claiming a share of a league title with the next Mustang victory. SMU only has 3 games remaining because the schedule was so poorly put together. The Mustangs travel to Memphis on Thursday night.
Tulsa guarantees itself the number 2 seed in the conference tournament with two victories the rest of the way. For what it’s worth, Ken Pom has projected Tulsa to go 2-2 the rest of the way.
Looking at the projected bracket, there is a gigantic advantage to ending up on the other side of the bracket away from SMU. I’m not saying Temple and Tulsa are bad, but SMU is clearly the class of the league. They’ve lost to one team. That one team are the Cincinnati Bearcats, so seeing SMU isn’t the most terrifying thing for Bearcat fans. Still, having to face SMU in the semi-finals instead of Tulsa is a gigantic disadvantage.
Last season we saw how the 2 seed part of the bracket had a major advantage over the 1 seed part of the bracket. While Cincinnati was the top seed, the Bearcats ended up matched up with 4 seed Connecticut. Louisville was the 2 seed and got the lowest seed remaining, 6 seed Houston, after the Cougars upset 3 seed SMU. The Cardinals won the AAC tournament by 110 points and probably would have won against anyone. What can’t be disputed is that Cincinnati drew the top seed and the toughest assignment.
That’s what could happen to SMU if Cincinnati stays in the 4 seed range. The Bearcats give the Mustangs fits and might be the only team that could knock them out of the tournament early. A Temple-Cincinnati game in the 4-5 matchup would be a bit improbable as of now, but it would be SMU’s worst nightmare. Especially since the other side of the bracket would have UConn, Memphis and Tulsa.
The AAC tournament is going to be really interesting. The main thing that sucks is the 3:15 worthless tip off time. If your game ends when the bracket is made, your game doesn’t matter. This is why no one cares about the Big Ten tournament title game. Sure, it has had some great teams win and some upsets, but those teams were slotted in win or lose. Once the result is made final, the committee rolls that way.
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