NCAAM teams
Jordan Brenner, ESPN The Magazine contributing writer 9y

Huskies still class of conference

Insider Men's College Basketball

If you think about it, the American Athletic Conference is the most successful league in college basketball history. One season. One national title. And that's on the heels of Louisville playing its lone season in the newly formed conference as the reigning national champ. UConn will now carry that banner through this season, and with the Cardinals now in the ACC, the Huskies should be the AAC's top dog.

But SMU isn't far behind, with a roster that goes two-deep at virtually every position and Larry Brown fitting those pieces together. Memphis looks like a clear tourney team, too, but strength at the top of the conference obscures the other story about the AAC: The bottom of the league is brutally bad. With newcomers Tulane and East Carolina joining incumbents South Florida and Central Florida, the rest of the conference should be treated to a host of blowout victories to pump up their records.

Ultimately, how well Cincinnati, Temple, Tulsa and Houston build off that excepted success against the bottom-dwellers will determine the depth of the conference as the AAC tries to prove it is more than just a one-hit wonder.

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