OT: AAC Fans Beyond Delusional

[stever20]

Since when is losing Rutgers in basketball a bad thing? Rutgers is awful- that's truly addition by subtraction(just like it was us last year). Losing 3 transfers in this day and age isn't out of the ordinary, especially in a coaching change.

AAC is getting some good players coming in. SMU if it was a blue blood basketball program would be ranked going into the season in the top 5- if not in the top 2-3. SMU is going to be darn tough next season.

And I'm sorry -but do you expect anyone to believe that if Creighton had won the title this year that Big East fans wouldn't be claiming it for themselves? Come on now. Just look at how prideful all the Big East fans in claiming Doug McDermott. The AAC had a good year- I don't know why everyone on here wants to keep on brining it up like they didn't. 4 AAC teams made the tourney(to include Tulsa)- and SMU made the NIT final(give me that over Xavier losing in the PIG any day of the week). Do they have some challenges? Yes.

Just looking at ESPN's recruiting grades for them- they only have 1 team who got a C. SMU only got a B+ because they didn't get but 1 guy(but a great guy at that). One thing that the AAC does that the Big East doesn't do much is get some JUCO guys. Cincy, UConn, Memphis all got guys that route. Houston as well. That means they may be able to contribute perhaps a bit sooner than frosh that they're 1-2 years older than.

Bottom line some AAC fans may be delusional but I think some Big East fans are just as delusional if they think the AAC was not viewed as having a very good 1st year. And with SMU looking as good as they are- AAC is primed for another good year in 2014-15. For the life of me I don't understand why folks on here want to continually bring up the AAC like they are like the MAAC or something like that. Especially when we had in a lot of ways a worse year.

[Michael in Raleigh]

The problem is, most of the schools in the AAC could care less about basketball. I remember watching a ranked UCONN team playing AT Houston last year and there were probably 500 people in the stands. UCONN was probably WTF!?!?

Exactly. It's a football-first conference for all but a few schools. And for some it's football-only.

Laughable to see the chest thumping that goes on over there about what "the conference accolished", based on UVonn's championship. Even fans of schools like ECU that aren't even in the conference this year are claiming credit. Just crazy.

Lots of ECU fans have a gigantic chip on their shoulders. All they've known for their whole lives is an ACC with 4 North Carolinaschools, 1-2 Virginia schools, and 1 SC school, and none of those are ECU. They tgink they deserve to be in the ACC or SEC. I do have to hand it to them for drawing big crowds in spite of a likewarm conference schedule, but they are mad about a lot of stuff. Shoulda been in the Big East a long time ago. Should get more credit for wins against this ACC team or that ACC team. They blame school's of today's Big East for never getting into the older league.

It's just part of their identity. And message boards being out the most embittered among them.

FWIW, I'm not as familiar with their hoops coach (gotta win more to get discussion on local sports talk in this college sports-driven mafket), but their football coach is absolutely one of the nicest men I've ever heard. Coach Ruffin McNeill is a class act all the way. That's quality is not as obvious with some of his team's fans, but he represents his school as well as any individual you could ever think of in college athletics.

That said, again, the AAC has little to.do with the Big East of today. Only UConn and Cincinnati were relevant conference mates in the eyes of former Big East schools; USF was just a warm body, as far as the C7 was concerned. The rest of the AAC never played basketball under the Big East banner. Again, the measuring sticks should be the ACC (home to 7 ex-Big East schools, competitor for New York's attention, similarly invested in basketball), the Big Ten (Gavitt Games connection, overlapping territory, existing intra-state rivalries, strong basketball culture/attendance), and the A-10 (fellow non-football, hoops-driven league in overlapping territory made up mostly of private schools). The AAC holds the charter and the conference offices of the league 7 of the mebers used to be in, but that is about it.

[Boyee]

The American is easily still the best Group of Five conference with Central Florida, Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, South Florida, Southern Methodist, Temple, Tulane, and Tulsa, as well as football-only Navy in 2015-2016.

The Mountain West has Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawai'i, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, and Wyoming.

The Mid-American has Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green State, Buffalo, Central Michgan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, UMass, Miami, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, and Western Michigan.

Conference USA has UNC Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, North Texas, Old Dominion, Rice, Southern Mississippi, UAB, UTEP, UTSA and Western Kentucky.

The Sun Belt has Appalachian State, Arkansas-Little Rock (no football), Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Idaho (football-only), Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico State (football-only), South Alabama, Texas-Arlington, Texas State, and Troy.

[BillikensWin]

And I'm sorry -but do you expect anyone to believe that if Creighton had won the title this year that Big East fans wouldn't be claiming it for themselves? Come on now. Just look at how prideful all the Big East fans in claiming Doug McDermott. The AAC had a good year- I don't know why everyone on here wants to keep on brining it up like they didn't. 4 AAC teams made the tourney(to include Tulsa)- and SMU made the NIT final(give me that over Xavier losing in the PIG any day of the week). Do they have some challenges? Yes.

This is the most asinine thing that has ever been said on this board. "Made the NIT final"---are we talking about some one-bid league? That's not an accomplishment at all, and what's worse...you try to pass it off as one when they didn't win anything. The NIT only exists because the NCAA needs somewhere to put the next group of teams after the real tournament.

The AAC did a lot this year, but the NIT is a strike against them; not something positive. The fact that you would take a 2nd place in the losers' bracket over the NCAA is absurd.

NIT = Nearly Irrelevant Tourney.

[Bill Marsh]

Since when is losing Rutgers in basketball a bad thing? Rutgers is awful- that's truly addition by subtraction(just like it was us last year). Losing 3 transfers in this day and age isn't out of the ordinary, especially in a coaching change.

AAC is getting some good players coming in. SMU if it was a blue blood basketball program would be ranked going into the season in the top 5- if not in the top 2-3. SMU is going to be darn tough next season.

And I'm sorry -but do you expect anyone to believe that if Creighton had won the title this year that Big East fans wouldn't be claiming it for themselves? Come on now. Just look at how prideful all the Big East fans in claiming Doug McDermott. The AAC had a good year- I don't know why everyone on here wants to keep on brining it up like they didn't. 4 AAC teams made the tourney(to include Tulsa)- and SMU made the NIT final(give me that over Xavier losing in the PIG any day of the week). Do they have some challenges? Yes.

Just looking at ESPN's recruiting grades for them- they only have 1 team who got a C. SMU only got a B+ because they didn't get but 1 guy(but a great guy at that). One thing that the AAC does that the Big East doesn't do much is get some JUCO guys. Cincy, UConn, Memphis all got guys that route. Houston as well. That means they may be able to contribute perhaps a bit sooner than frosh that they're 1-2 years older than.

Bottom line some AAC fans may be delusional but I think some Big East fans are just as delusional if they think the AAC was not viewed as having a very good 1st year. And with SMU looking as good as they are- AAC is primed for another good year in 2014-15. For the life of me I don't understand why folks on here want to continually bring up the AAC like they are like the MAAC or something like that. Especially when we had in a lot of ways a worse year.

Losing Rutgers is a bad thing when their replacements are ECU and Tulane. It's called, going from bad to worse, at least Rutgers has some basketball tradition. They've been to a Final four. They're located in a great market and a great recruiting area.

For all that some AAC accolished this year, it's still a league in transition. Louisville was one of their high achievets and they're now gone. That takes away a lot of the fun in being able to claim that the conference got 4 teams into the tournament when only 3 are coming back.

For all the optimism at SMU, that has to be countered by all the pessimism at Temple. One of the few true basketball schools that the conference had going for it. After going to the tournament for 6 straight years, temple fell flat on their face this year. And there's no real reason to think they'll get better any time soon. They looked like an A10 program that was in over its head against the likes of UConn, Louisville, Memphis, and Cincinnati. They give all of the appearances of a program in real trouble.

There is really no way to sugar coat it. Except for a few programs at the top, this is a bad basketball league, made even worse by the fact that too many of its programs have little to no basketball tradition and don't really care about the sport.

[stever20]

sorry but to a lot of folks- Rutgers is equal to ECU and Tulane. and, Rutgers had all that time in the Big East and couldn't do anything. What's to say that ECU and Tulane won't improve with the much stronger league that they are now in.

It's not a bad basketball league. To have UConn, Cincy and Memphis that made the tourney last year, SMU who will be a preseason top 15 team bare minimum, Tulsa who also made the tourney as an auto bid in C-USA- that's not bad at all. It's EASILY a top 7 or 8 league in 2015. To say except for a few programs at the top, that's just like asking ok Ms Lincoln other than that, how was the play. You just can't take away those programs at the top. They are going to have likely 2 top 25 teams at the start of the 2014-15 season with not too much issues at all- UConn and SMU...

How many leagues are better than them? ACC, Big 10, Big 12 unquestionably. Pac 12 probably. But after that? Big East- with likely 1 top 25 team preseason? SEC? A10? After those- there is no one else even remotely close to being better than they are. I don't think basketball is as deep in 2014 as it was 10-15 years ago. There's no where near as many quality conferences. 8 Conferences took all but 2 of the at large spots this past season. And that trend looks like it's going to continue. So to have 4 very likely NCAA tourney teams in 2015- that is no bad basketball league. Not today. And, it's not like they're going to be even close to bubble teams.

Also, I think it goes to what your definiton of a good league is. Mine I know is how good you are at the top. Not how good your 8th place team is in a 10 team league. I don't think general fans really look at that at all- but more so how good is your top level. You put WAY too much value on depth.

Also speaking about SMU/Xavier- I just think SMU getting those 4 extra games vs Xavier not being even in the final 64- you could easily say SMU got more out of this postseason.

[BillikensWin]

It's the NIT. That's not postseason.

Xavier did better than SMU, period.

[Bluejay]

4 AAC teams made the tourney(to include Tulsa)- and SMU made the NIT final(give me that over Xavier losing in the PIG any day of the week).

In a remarkably lengthy list of ridiculous things you have posted, this may be the most ridiculous of all.

If there was any uncertainty regarding you being a fan of the AAC rather than the BE, this certain eliminates that uncertainty. Only an AAC fan thinks an NIT birth for AAC club is better than an NCAA tourney birth for a BE club. Apparently we should all be aiming for NIT births, not NCAA births.

[stever20]

My point on Xavier- were they even really in the tourney? Losing in the PIG in Dayton you aren't really in the tourney at all. So like this year for Xavier and I guess it was Iowa- it doesn't feel like they were really in the real tourney at all. Note, I didn't say Providence for instance. they were in the final 64. To me, there's a huge difference there.

[Boyee]

All members of The American except Connecticut and Temple have been in Conference USA at some point in the past. Louisville, DePaul, Marquette, Cincinnati and South Florida left C-USA for the original Big East Conference in 2005.