CBS: Could the AAC only receive one NCAA Tournament bid?

[Harry0569]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketb ... his-season


Could the AAC only receive one NCAA Tournament bid this season?
By Sam Vecenie | CBSSports.com
December 8, 2014 3:32 pm ET

Larry Brown and Nic Moore may have a tough team reaching the Big Dance in 2015. (USATSI) Larry Brown and Nic Moore may have a tough team reaching the Big Dance in 2015. (USATSI)

Last season, the American Athletic Conference was one of the most top-heavy leagues in the country. Louisville was a top-10 team for a large part of the season. Memphis spent the entire season ranked, Cincinnati spent all of conference season ranked, and SMU was even in the top-25 at the end of the season before its disastrous loss in the first round of the AAC Tournament. Then of course, Connecticut rolled through the NCAA Tournament and became national champions.

That's no longer the case. No team is currently ranked in either the AP or the Coaches Polls, and the conference is currently scuffling along as the aforementioned teams are no longer what they were.

Louisville left for the greener -- both monetarily and competitively -- pastures of the ACC.

Memphis has 20-point losses to Baylor and Wichita State already, as well as a double-digit home loss to Stephen F. Austin on its way to a 3-3 start. Connecticut is also 3-3, and just lost to Yale for the first time since Jim Calhoun's first season in charge. The jury is still out on a 6-1 Cincinnati that doesn't have a top-100 win yet, and lost to 75th-ranked Mississippi in its only game against a top-10 conference team so far. SMU is probably the unluckiest team in America this season after losing Emmanuel Mudiay and Markus Kennedy, but even so it's hard not to be semi-disappointed with its 5-3 start.

All of that adds up to a ninth-place conference ranking in KenPom and a larger question that seemed crazy coming into the year: could the AAC only be a one-bid league?

The average number of leagues that have ended up with multiple bids over the course of the past four seasons (2011 is the season the field expanded to 68 teams) is 11. So the conference is certainly still on the right side of the ledger there.

But it's worth mentioning that none of the potential at-large AAC teams have a marquee win. The league's best win right now is undoubtedly Tulsa's win over Creighton last week, but the Hurricane is also already 5-3 with a loss to Oral Roberts. It seems unlikely they will get to the Tournament in their first year of AAC play.

According to KenPom, the best wins for those previously mentioned potential at-large teams are Connecticut's neutral floor win over 56th-ranked Dayton, followed by SMU's home win over Wyoming. While both Dayton and Wyoming could challenge for at-large bids, neither is anywhere near resembling a sure-thing to make the NCAA Tournament.

So what do you do with a league whose at-large contenders don't have a win against any of the top-six conferences in the country? Luckily, the committee may not have to decide as the AAC's teams do have a few opportunities to pick up the win that they need.

Connecticut still has games against Duke and at Florida. The Huskies probably don't have enough firepower to hang with the Blue Devils. However, picking up a win against Florida seems doable given that the Gators haven't been at their best yet this year. But they won't be favored in either game, and if they lose them both the Huskies will probably have a difficult time avoiding 10 losses on the year. That could make for an interesting decision for the committee come tournament time.

We'll also find out a lot about Cincinnati over the next two weeks, as the Bearcats' next three games are against Nebraska, San Diego State and VCU. All three of those teams look a little bit worse than expected so far, so they will be a good litmus test to see how real Cincinnati's Tournament hopes are after losing a lot from last season's team fifth-seeded team. So we're still in wait-and-see mode with the Bearcats, whose leading returning scorer from last year was Shaquille Thomas at 6.8 points per game.

Memphis has Oklahoma State on Saturday, but the difficult part of its non-conference slate is mostly done. If the Tigers lose to the Cowboys, they're probably going to have to go at least 14-4 in league play or win the conference tournament to get a spot in the dance without any good non-conference wins. Given their play so far this year, that seems unlikely.

The most interesting case study here is probably SMU, as the Mustangs should get Kennedy back later this month. Might the committee look at their early season losses to Indiana, Gonzaga and Arkansas differently, given that their second-best player missed the early part of the season? That's a possibility, but unless the Mustangs can win at Michigan on December 20, they would then require a really good league run to prove that Kennedy was the missing piece. Anything less than 14-4 or a conference tournament title probably leaves them sitting at home. Given that KenPom projects no one to finish better than 13-5 in the league, that -- again -- seems unlikely.

Outside of those four, no one else seems likely to pop up and steal an at-large bid. I already mentioned Tulsa. Houston is 4-1, but lost its only top-100 game so far by 21 to Harvard. Tulane has a win over Mississippi State, but the Wave lost their only other top-130 game by 22 to Wake Forest. South Florida just lost to Detroit, Temple has a loss to a down St. Joseph's team, and neither UCF nor East Carolina have a top-150 win.

So as you can see, it's pretty clear the league is down this season. And while it definitely has some chances to rectify its missteps in non-conference play, it's also running out of time. AAC teams probably won't be favored in any of the seven aforementioned key games remaining, which means the league may have a tough time picking up that marquee win it needs.

Say the league does end up going 0-7 in those games? That could lead to a situation where the AAC turns into a one-bid league this season, which would be a disaster after its strong 2013-14 debut. The next three weeks for the AAC will be critical, and will likely tell the story of whether or not 2014-15 season will be a success or a failure for this league that had three teams in the top 34 of the AP Poll coming into the season.

[GiddyUp]

No reason we can't win the league or the conf tourney if we get MK back in full force.

2 bid league unless it's the same team.

[Chnash318]

No reason we can't win the league or the conf tourney if we get MK back in full force.

2 bid league unless it's the same team.

Agreed

[mustangxc]

Still, very disappointing that Memphis, Temple, Cincinnati, and UCONN are all down at the same time and SMU not living up to expectations. Hopefully Sampson can inject life into Houston and the aforementioned schools rebound with strong seasons next year. I really had high hopes for this season and am still hopeful that we do well, but that will not help the league and as much as I want SMU to win, I want the conference to be as strong as possible.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

I hope for two bids but I am really starting to fear one.

Let's just win the tournament so we don't have to worry about it on selection Sunday again this year.