Im not blaming just the conference, but it played a major role. I just said in another post that for schools like SMU, Houston, Memphis, and Wichita, the AAC is an immediate upgrade compared to the conference they came from. UConn is the one school in the country that has gotten hurt the most in the last round of realignment. Getting stuck in the AAC is a downgrade for UConn, and Cincinnati. The difference with Cincinnati is they played in Conference USA for years before joining the Big East in 2005, so their time at the top of the mountain was relatively short compared to us.