Yesterday the microsite rolled out the first half of our AAC non-conference schedule rankings, listing teams from #11 to #6 based on the competitiveness of their schedules. Today’s rankings of the top five are a bit more interesting, primarily because a lot of these games are projected to have NCAA Tournament implications and are therefore deserving of a closer look. Here are the top five non-conference schedules in the conference, starting from the easiest to the hardest:

• #5 Cincinnati: We have frequently used this space to blast Cincinnati for its soft non-conference schedule and it seems like Mick Cronin is finally listening. Last season’s slate featured four games against teams ranked #300 or lower, whereas this season only Eastern Illinois comes into the season lower than that mark, and the rest of the Bearcats’ schedule should give the team ample opportunities to pile up resume-enhancing wins. The Emerald Coast Classic could result in a match-up with Creighton or Mississippi, and the team also welcomes San Diego State and VCU to Fifth Third Arena before the end of 2014. And even though the game will be played in February this season, don’t forget about the Crosstown Classic against Xavier either. If the Bearcats can win a couple of those games and follow that up with double-digit victories in the conference, it will be tough to keep Cincinnati out of the NCAA Tournament.
  

  Josh Pastner’s team will have an early chance to answer how good they can be. (USA TODAY Sports)

• #4 Memphis: No team in the conference plays a more difficult season opener than the Tigers, which are headed to South Dakota for a prime-time showdown with Wichita State. That’s a great opportunity, but aside from the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational in which Memphis will play Baylor and perhaps Illinois, the non-conference schedule looks comparable to last season’s 151st-best slate in the country. The only other game worth paying attention to is the December 13 return game home date with Oklahoma State. If Memphis is on the bubble in February, it will be worth remembering that the Tigers opted to play Prairie View A&M and Western Illinois as part of their non-conference schedule this season.

• #3 Temple: The Owls are trying to return to the NCAA Tournament after an underwhelming 2013-14 campaign, but they didn’t do themselves any favors with this year’s tough-as-nails non-conference schedule. No team turns down a chance for the national attention that comes with playing in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, even if that means a beatdown by Duke in front of a national audience. Also, an away game against Big 5 rival Villanova is a staple on the schedule, but welcoming Kansas to the Wells Fargo Center just a week later is not. Those three potential wins wouldn’t be good wins, they would be marquee wins. That said, the Owls also play strong mid-major Louisiana Tech and, of course, Saint Joseph’s, so there are other opportunities here to impress early.
  

  UConn’s national appeal means Ryan Boatright’s team plays a tough early season schedule. (AP)

• #2 Connecticut: The Huskies are too big of a national draw to ever play a bad non-conference schedule, and this year is no exception as UConn will be the favorite in a Puerto Rico Tip-Off that could include games against Texas A&M, Dayton and/or West Virginia. A week after that tournament ends, Kevin Ollie’s team welcomes Texas to Gampel Pavilion, and a little more than two weeks after that, UConn will play Duke in a neutral-site game at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. To follow that up just before the conference schedule begins, the Huskies will sneak down to Gainesville to play a very good Florida team. Those are three games against elite competition on the heels of a competitive Puerto Rico tournament, all by the first week of the new year.
• #1 SMU: After playing the 299th-toughest non-conference schedule and narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament last season, it is clear that head coach Larry Brown got the message on scheduling. Lamar will be sacrificed in the season opener before the Mustangs travel to play Gonzaga in Spokane followed by Indiana in Bloomington, in what are two great opportunities to wash away the bitter end to last season. The team then heads back home to play a good Arkansas team five days later with early December games against Wyoming and UC Santa Barbara tougher than they look. SMU will get one last national stage when it travels to play Michigan right before the holidays. UConn may end up with more quality wins from its non-conference schedule this season, but SMU gets the edge in the AAC this year for playing all of its biggest games away from the comfortable confines of Moody Coliseum.

mlemaire (324 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2014 at 6:31 pm by mlemaire and is filed under aac, microsites. Tagged: baylor, cincinnati, duke, florida, gonzaga, indiana, kansas, larry brown, memphis, michigan, mick cronin, moody coliseum, oklahoma state, ryan boatright, san diego state, smu, temple, texas, uconn, vcu, villanova, wichita state. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.