granger87

I'm visiting this site briefly as a Temple alum/fan, and I was really impressed with USF's team when the Owls played them last year, escaping with extremely narrow victories. I don't know much about the differences in the Bulls team between last season and the next one, but the Bulls were a very young team last season, so I'm assuming that, with a year of experience under their belts, they will be more competitive in the AAC in 2019-20. Regarding the top half of the AAC - based on this and other projections that are available - Memphis and Houston seem the consensus top two teams, followed by a group of 5 teams who will battle for 3rd through 8th place: USF, Cincy, Wichita State, Temple, and UConn. Given the incredible energy level that USF played with last season, the Bulls could possibly have a shot at third place if its talent and experience level has increased by a notch or so since last season. Wichita has lost 2 key players but has reloaded with some very good recruits, so they'll be in the mix. Cincy's lost 3 starters and this will be a transitional year, but the AAC POY returns for them, along with a couple of talented new players. UConn adds some talented recruits and might be a force to contend with. FYI, Temple loses Shizz Alston and their starting Center Aflakpui, but adds a high-scoring (18+ ppg) transfer guard (James "Monty" Scott) and a #155 ranked PG/CG recruit, while returning 6 players from last year's core rotation, plus Scott and the new PG/CG. It looks like there could be a free-for-all between USF, Wichita, Cincy, Temple, and UConn contesting for two of what will hopefully be 4 NCAA teams from our conference. Despite having talented players, UConn, Cincy and, to some extent Wichita will all be going through a transitional year, so I think that USF and Temple will be among the bubble teams battling for a NCAA invitation in the final weeks of the season.

In the interviews the commissioner has clarified that his role is as a broker, negotiator and adviser when it comes to adding schools. He is in the upper chain of command, but he reports to the conference members and ESPN. So it seems he is not the Commander in Chief or a member of the cabinet, but something more like the 5 star general or head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or a theater commander like Eisenhower was in WW2. The point being: He takes his orders from higher authorities, and represents the AAC in its dealings with ESPN, as Ike did with Churchill. It's doubtful that Tulane and Tulsa would be jettisoned, at least until the 10 year media contract expires. Those two schools could sue for breach of contract and financial damages to their future bottom lines, and it would piss a lot of people off. More importantly, even if 9 AAC members were to bail on the current arrangement and pay their $90 million to those two schools, they wouldn't be operating independently, because ESPN has invested a billion dollars in the conference, and they might not agree to losing two sizable media markets in NOLA and Oklahoma (biggest cities Tulsa and OK City only 2-3 hours apart). Denver, Salt Lake City, and San Diego have similar market sizes, which would help, but Denver's market would be split in half by AFA and CO State. Boise doesn't, and it's not clear if ESPN would be willing to pay $7+ million/year to add those 4 schools. More likely, San Diego, BYU and AF or CO State would be worth it to them, and adding 3 of those while retaining T & T would give the AAC a 14 school conference. ESPN might go for that, or might find it more in their interest to add only 1 of those schools. So the 9, 10, or 11 AAC schools wouldn't be flying the plane alone. They would be co-pilots in such a deal, and couldn't make it happen without ESPN's consent and direct involvement. ESPN would have veto power and negotiating power, and they've got all the cash. So, in the final analysis, it will be mostly up to them, in consultation with the various universities.