The Cincinnati Bearcats’ AAC schedule begins on Tuesday night when they host the 5-5 Temple Owls, kicking off three months of conference games that will make or break their NCAA Tournament. That wasn’t the case for UC last year and the root cause is the lack of quality wins for them this go around.
When the Bearcats faced the #1 ranked Xavier Musketeers in terms of RPI in the Crosstown Shootout, they lost. Against #4 Iowa State? Lost. #23 Butler? Lost. Their only top 50 RPI win this season was the George Washington Colonials (#26) and even VCU, which last year would have been considered a quality win, are only ranked #132.
As such, Cincinnati is sitting at 71st in RPI, at this very, very early point ineligible for the NCAA Tournament.
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Compare that to last year when they were a top 50, sometimes 25, team before Christmas with wins over San Diego State (#26) and NC State (#39). Again, UC’s best wins at this point are #26 and #132.
That puts more pressure on the Bearcats to make waves in the AAC. The encouraging news is that while they were picked to finished fourth in the conference last season, and did so, Cincinnati rolled over teams that finished ahead of them in the standings. UC swept AAC champs SMU, knocked off Tulsa on the road, and split with Temple. They did the same against UConn and Memphis, proving they’re more than capable of playing their best basketball in conference play.
This year they’re favored to finish third in the conference and while it remains to be seen if they can continue to have SMU’s number and continue to have success against UConn and Memphis at home, their recent history is encouraging. Regardless, that’s just what they’ll need to do to earn themselves a favorable seed in the NCAA Tournament. A one or two seed seems out of their reach but a 3-6 is certainly possible but it call comes down to the AAC to set them up for a deep run in March.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there are as many opportunities for quality wins in the conference as there were last year.
SMU is currently sitting at #7 in RPI but the next highest opponent is Tulsa at #79, then Temple at #117, UConn at #121, then they fall pretty quickly after that. Now, all AAC teams will inevitably rise in the RPI rankings by way of beating up on each other but who knows if SMU will grab some bad losses. UC certainly did last year. That’s why they finished fourth in the conference standings. It’s just too early to tell if the American will present as many quality opponents this season.
So for the Bearcats, it all comes back to the fact that the AAC is even more important to their NCAA Tournament hopes than ever. They have to aim for a 3-6 seed and their losses to Butler, Xavier, and Iowa State did more harm than potential good. It will test their mettle but given what UC overcame last year there’s no telling what kind of damage they can do in conference play.