A Look At The American Athletic Conference
Now that the 2012-2013 season has come to a close, it’s time to look forward to the fall and the beginning of UConn’s hopefully short-lived presence in the American Athletic Conference. Apparently we’re supposed to call the new conference The American as opposed to the AAC, I guess to avoid confusion with the ACC but you’d think after a few South Florida-SMU basketball games people would figure it out for themselves.
Anyway, with the advent of the 2013-2014 school year, UConn will be in the American along with fellow Big East left-behinds South Florida and Cincinnati, Louisville and Rutgers (who bolt for the ACC and B1G, respectively, at this time next year), Houston, Memphis, SMU and UCF from Conference-USA, and Temple from the Atlantic 10.
The following year, 2014, Louisville and Rutgers leave and are replaced by East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa from C-USA. In 2015, Navy will join as a football-only member.
Yes, that’s right; the American will be comprised primarily of mid-major schools. To be fair, there are some decent to good mid-major schools and an up-and-comer in UCF but that’s not really the point. Unless there is a lot of out of conference scheduling with former Big East teams, the days of looking forward to a UConn-Syracuse battle in men’s basketball or a UConn-Rutgers rock fight in football or UConn-ND catfight in women’s hoops are gone. It’s just not the same level of anticipation for a UConn-Tulane game in, well, anything.
But maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe Tulane is great at something and we just don’t know it yet. So, I’m going to be taking a closer look at UConn’s new – and old – conference-mates, sport by sport. Maybe we’ll be be surprised.
| 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 |
|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati | Cincinnati | Cincinnati |
| Connecticut | Connecticut | Connecticut |
| Houston | Houston | Houston |
| Louisville | – | – |
| Memphis | Memphis | Memphis |
| Rutgers | – | – |
| SMU | SMU | SMU |
| South Florida | South Florida | South Florida |
| Temple | Temple | Temple |
| UCF | UCF | UCF |
| – | East Carolina | East Carolina |
| – | Tulane | Tulane |
| – | Tulsa | Tulsa |
| – | – | Navy (football only) |
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