UC Bearcats Basketball: Taking A Look At Cincinnati’s Path To An AAC Championship

Feb 15, 2014; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cincinnati Bearcats forward Titus Rubles (2) high-fives fans during the pre game ceremonies against the Houston Cougars at FifthThird Arena. Cincinnati defeated Houston 73-62. Mandatory Credit: Frank Victores-USA TODAY Sports

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The Cincinnati Bearcats demolished the Central Florida Knights on Wednesday night and now face the 11th ranked Louisville Cardinals tomorrow at noon. This games marks the first one that will help determine the first AAC basketball champion and right now the Bearcats are in the driver’s seat at 13-1 in the conference. But several teams are right on their heels.

Over the course of the season the American Conference has effectively been sliced in half, between contenders and pretenders. The top teams consist of Cincinnati, Louisville, SMU, UConn, and Memphis with their combined 52-15 AAC record. The bottom half consists of the dregs, Houston, Rutgers, Temple, South Florida, and Central Florida, all of whom have just two more combined conference wins (15) than UC alone (13). But the ones near the top are fairly close in the standings with just 3 1/2 games separating the 4th place teams with the 1st place team.

What will be a huge determining factor is the number of games remaining for each team.

Most of the games each team has left will start evening out over the next week with everyone except for Cincinnati and SMU playing more than two games between now and Saturday March 1st. Even so, realistically UConn and Memphis are hanging on by a thread in the standings. The Huskies and Tigers are currently 3 1/2 games behind UC with just 5 to play. They have to hope the Bearcats completely collapse down the stretch and that includes beating them in their head-to-heads on March 1st and March 6th. UConn worries me because it’s on the road and Cincinnati has historically struggled against Shabazz Napier but Memphis does not. UC might lose one of those games but not both.

Louisville and Southern Methodist still have a chance but the latter not as much. Cincinnati already split their games with SMU and the two won’t play them again until maybe the AAC tournament. So in that respect UC controls their own destiny over the Mustangs and considering the Bearcats are up 3 games with both teams having 4 left to play, I like their chances. What is concerning are those pesky Cardinals that just won’t seem to go away.

Cincinnati owns a 1 1/2 game lead on Louisville in the AAC standings, which is why the game tomorrow is so huge. If the Bearcats lose, their lead evaporates to a half game over UL and the Cardinals will have an opportunity to tie UC if/when they beat Temple next Thursday. Then it would come down to each of their respective three games to close out the season.

• Cincinnati: @ #21 UConn, #22 Memphis, @ Rutgers
• Louisville: @ #22 Memphis, @ SMU, #21 UConn

Since UC plays Rutgers, the Cardinals have by far the more difficult stretch of opponents. None of those games are gimmies, especially the one at Moody Coliseum where the Mustangs have never lost this season. If it comes down to it and we have to sweat out the final three games, I’d be much more worried if I were a Cardinal fan.

But if Cincinnati does take down Louisville tomorrow they will own a 2 1/2 game lead on the Cardinals in the AAC standings and basically eliminate SMU, Memphis, and UConn. Assuming UL beats Temple next Thursday, they will have to follow that up by sweeping Memphis, SMU, and UConn while at the same time praying that Cincinnati loses all 3 of their last games. That’s a lot of variables that will have to go Louisville’s way.

So to sum up:

• The AAC championship could very well be decided by Cincinnati and Louisville tomorrow.
• If Cincinnati wins, they effectively lock up the AAC title by owning a 2 1/2 game lead on the Cardinals and eliminating SMU, Memphis, and UConn. The Cardinals will have to hope the planets align in just a certain way to win the championship.
• If Cincinnati loses, Louisville has a strong chance to tie UC in the AAC standings and even SMU comes back into the picture.
• Regardless of what happens tomorrow, Memphis and UConn are running out of games to catch up to the top two teams in the AAC standings. They are essentially done after Saturday.