As the 2022-23 men's assemblage hoops play draws closer, ESPN.com's sheet of experts is predicting the bid of decorativeness for the nation's apical conferences. Having already looked astatine Gonzaga and Division I's apical mid-majors, the absorption present shifts to the American Athletic Conference (AAC).
The Houston Cougars volition invited backmost Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark aft they missed important clip successful 2021-22 owed to injuries. The Memphis Tigers inactive person DeAndre Williams and Alex Lomax and person added SMU transportation Kendric Davis.
Houston and Memphis were the lone AAAC teams to scope the 2022 NCAA tournament. Perhaps successful 2023 it volition beryllium Cincinnati oregon Temple oregon Tulane oregon different squad wholly that besides hears its sanction connected Selection Sunday. Myron Medcalf, Jeff Borzello, Joe Lunardi and John Gasaway made their predictions and offered their thoughts connected each the league's large questions.
Find much preseason investigation here.
AAC 2022-23 superlatives
Player of the Year
Medcalf: Marcus Sasser, Houston
Borzello: Marcus Sasser, Houston
Gasaway: Marcus Sasser, Houston
Lunardi: Marcus Sasser, Houston
Newcomer of the Year
Medcalf: Kendric Davis, Memphis
Borzello: Kendric Davis, Memphis
Gasaway: Kendric Davis, Memphis
Lunardi: Jarace Walker, Houston
AAC 2022-23 roundtable
After back-to-back Elite Eight appearances and a Final Four tally successful 2021, what is Houston's ceiling successful 2022-23? Are they Final Four-good again?
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Tramon Mark gets the hoop and the harm
Borzello: Houston's ceiling is simply a nationalist championship. We cognize what to expect from Kelvin Sampson-coached teams: elite defence and elite violative rebounding. I don't expect that to change. What this squad has that the erstwhile 2 editions lacked is explosiveness offensively. Marcus Sasser mightiness beryllium the champion defender successful the country. Jamal Shead emerged arsenic a terrific playmaker down the agelong of past season. Incoming freshman Jarace Walker is simply a first-rounder. Another freshman, Terrance Arceneaux, is simply a scoring instrumentality who volition supply instant discourtesy disconnected the bench. Double-figure scorer Tramon Mark is besides backmost healthy. There aren't galore weaknesses connected this roster.
Medcalf: I agree. Sampson's quality to regroup aft losing Sasser and Mark earlier New Year's Day and inactive triumph 32 games was the astir singular coaching effort of the 2021-22 season. Sasser could beryllium a archetypal squad All-American connected each reputable database by this season's end. Sampson has done much with little successful his career. But this radical has the endowment excavation to vie with the champion teams successful America. This could beryllium the twelvemonth Sampson gets his archetypal nationalist championship.
Gasaway: It bears repeating that the Cougars were short-handed past season: Marcus Sasser was retired for 26 games and Tramon Mark missed 31. Both are back, and joined by immoderate talent. If determination is immoderate interest with this different stellar rotation it's that Sampson did suffer a bully woody of size successful the offseason. This is the clip for J'Wan Roberts to measurement guardant and support that robust violative rebound percent arsenic a recently minted starter and crossed galore much minutes.
Lunardi: Everyone remembers the Gordon Hayward changeable that astir propelled Butler past Duke successful the 2010 nationalist title game. Many hide that crippled was played successful Indianapolis, a precise abbreviated travel from the Butler campus.
We could precise good beryllium looking astatine a repetition successful 2023. The Final Four is acceptable for NRG Stadium successful Houston, wherever it conscionable truthful happens the hometown Cougars volition unfastened the play arsenic a statement top-five team. The Cougars followed up their 2021 Final Four berth with an Elite Eight quality past season. The champion subordinate (and galore others) is back. Houston truly is that good, and it should astonishment nary 1 if it is playing "home games" successful April.
Memphis hasn't lacked for endowment oregon headlines successful the Penny Hardaway era. What's your forecast for the Tigers successful 2022-23?
Lunardi: The Tigers turned a spot of a country past year. Memphis bushed Houston doubly successful the last period of the season, took retired a bully Boise State squad successful its NCAA opener and past extended Gonzaga to a four-point crippled successful the 2nd round. For possibly the archetypal clip successful the Penny Hardaway era, the Tigers came adjacent to gathering expectations. The 2022-23 squad whitethorn not beryllium arsenic individually talented arsenic successful different caller seasons, but it has a accidental to physique connected its 2022 agelong run. Hardaway has an older group, plentifulness of incoming endowment and a spot connected his enarthrosis aft what helium believed was an unfair No. 9 effect (it wasn't). I spot much of the aforesaid for Memphis successful 2023. Second successful the American and a first-round NCAA tourney win.
Gasaway: I'm with Joe: Memphis looks similar the American's No. 2 team. Granted, determination could beryllium a ample spread betwixt No. 1 (presumably Houston) and No. 3. In fact, I wouldn't beryllium shocked to find the Tigers successful Bubble Watch yet again. Certainly, this squad is susceptible of making the 2023 tournament. SMU transportation Kendric Davis volition beryllium successful the speech for American subordinate of the year, Alex Lomax is backmost for a 5th twelvemonth and 26-year-old DeAndre Williams is, well, 26. Replacing Jalen Duren, Lester Quinones and Landers Nolley II volition beryllium challenging, but Hardaway's accustomed to seismic shifts successful personnel.
Medcalf: I deliberation the Tigers person a changeable to marque different tally to the NCAA tournament, which would beryllium Penny Hardaway's 2nd travel arsenic caput manager of Memphis. With the NCAA play present down the program, Memphis tin absorption connected a play that volition beryllium led by Davis, who averaged 19.4 PPG past season. With Williams (11.1 PPG, 5.8 RPG), Boise State transportation Emmanuel Akot (38% from 3) and the bouncy players astir them, this radical looks a batch similar past year's SMU squad -- but with superior antiaircraft capabilities. That SMU squad won 24 games. Memphis' postseason ceiling, however, is little than it was past season, I think.
Borzello: This is simply a radical much successful enactment with the older, tougher teams Hardaway molded into top-five defenses nationally. We've talked astir Davis and Williams already, and Hardaway has surrounded those 2 with high-scoring mid-major transfers. Although UT-Arlington transportation Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu isn't Duren, he's a genuinely elite shot-blocker who volition let Memphis to beryllium much assertive defensively. They mightiness not person the aforesaid fearfulness origin they had past season, but they're the wide No. 2 successful the AAC -- which should effect successful a comfy NCAA tourney appearance.
The league volition spot large changes aft this season, with Cincinnati, Houston and UCF leaving for the Big 12, and Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA joining. What is the near-term outlook for the league moving forward?
0:22
The UAB Blazers decision the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs to triumph the Conference USA title.
Medcalf: It conscionable won't beryllium the aforesaid conference. I'm definite the league's imagination is to someway germinate into a WCC-like assembly, with Memphis arsenic its Gonzaga and possibly Wichita State oregon SMU arsenic its Saint Mary's. A fewer problems: Memphis ain't Gonzaga, a nationalist rubric contender for the past decade, and Saint Mary's has made arsenic galore NCAA tourney appearances (four) since 2017 arsenic Memphis and Wichita State combined. I expect things to alteration for the worse for the American aft this season, unfortunately.
Borzello: The American has been considered to beryllium connected the borderline of the high-major/mid-major discussion. That dramatically changes with the departures. Houston won't beryllium astir to prop up the league. So the American's estimation fundamentally depends connected Memphis, and either SMU oregon Wichita State to beryllium an NCAA tourney team.
It besides volition request Andy Kennedy and Grant McCasland to instrumentality astir astatine the incoming UAB and North Texas, respectively, and hopefully proceed their winning ways. There's a beardown lawsuit to beryllium made the American volition driblet down the Atlantic 10, Mountain West and WCC successful the pecking order.
Gasaway: The league's hoops appears poised to instrumentality a hit. Losing Houston is the headline, of course, but adjacent looking past that, the outlook is unsettling. At archetypal glance, for example, it whitethorn look that the outgoing Cincinnati and UCF haven't done overmuch for the league the past 2 seasons. Maybe not, but extracurricular of stalwarts North Texas and UAB, nary of the incoming C-USA programs person posted a KenPom ranking successful the past decennary arsenic bully arsenic what the Bearcats (No. 101) oregon the Knights (104) recorded past year.
Lunardi: Near-term, the American needs to thrust the existent Houston question to different Final Four (or more). It would beryllium somewhat akin to UConn winning the 2014 nationalist title portion ever eyeing a powerfulness league berth.
After that, the league's best-case script whitethorn beryllium for Memphis to revert to its John Calipari days. From 2006 done 2009, the Tigers landed arsenic No. 1 oregon No. 2 seeds connected Selection Sunday, elevating an often one-bid Conference USA. Can the American's adjacent question of C-USA alums propulsion disconnected a akin feat? Probably not.
Who oregon what are we not talking astir capable astir crossed the AAC?
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Tulane wins a choky crippled and manager Ron Hunter is having the clip of his beingness aft the game.
Gasaway: Cincinnati hasn't reached an NCAA tourney with a manager different than Mick Cronin since 2005. (That manager was Bob Huggins.) This could beryllium the play that unthinkable streak comes to an end. The Bearcats instrumentality 4 starters and are adding Nolley II from Memphis]. Also support successful mind, the numbers suggest David DeJulius is agelong overdue for immoderate 3s to commencement falling. If those beverage leaves are correct, Cincy could look similar a overmuch antithetic squad successful 2023.
Lunardi: Tulane has produced precisely 3 winning seasons -- and thing adjacent to a post-season tourney -- since the crook of the century. Yet Ron Hunter has the Green Wave connected the fringe of the NCAA bubble heading into conscionable his 4th year. For a programme that has endured mode much "downs" than "ups," immoderate affirmative mojo is simply a large measurement forward. Look for Tulane to person its champion play successful astatine slightest 2 decades, possibly adjacent bully capable for Hunter to autumn disconnected a seat connected nationalist television.
Borzello: I'm with Lunardi. Hunter took implicit a programme successful disarray backmost successful 2019, with the Green Wave coming disconnected an 0-18 AAC campaign. He's turned things astir successful 3 years, and Tulane present brings each 5 starters backmost from a squad that finished 10-8 successful league play. Going 10-8 mightiness not look similar a immense feat, but it's the archetypal clip since 2007 the programme finished supra .500 successful the league. Jalen Cook, Jaylen Forbes and Kevin Cross each earned all-conference honors past season, and Hunter landed Georgetown transportation Collin Holloway, who averaged 9.2 points past season. Tulane volition marque immoderate waves this season. (Sorry, I had to bash it.)
Medcalf: After finishing 58-70 successful 4 years astatine Siena (2001-05), caller SMU caput manager Rob Lanier had to hold 14 years to get different changeable arsenic a caput coach. A palmy tally astatine Georgia State (53-30 successful 3 years, 1 league rubric and an NCAA tourney appearance) past led to his existent station with the Mustangs. SMU mislaid a batch of talent, but that's not abnormal for Lanier, who had to upwind akin challenges successful Atlanta. He's a bully illustration of a caput manager who's making the astir of different opportunity. Lanier is impervious a bully manager volition ever beryllium a bully manager nether the close circumstances.
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