Making Sense of the American

Brian has the American checking in at 8 in conference POWER rankings. No argument here. The larger question for me, what is the American?

The American is part old Big East, a minor dash of A-10 and jumble of Conference USA. As we wistfully think back to conference Armageddon, this league is basically all the schools left behind and the one most likely to get raided once the next big realignment occurs.

While it's enjoying its moment in the sun for football (Justin Fuente, Mark Rhule and Tom Herman are short termers), it should be a decent basketball conference. It's largest problem is the bottom of the conference. 

UConn is a national brand. Kevin Ollie's program took a step back last year but he's adding talent and will be a top team sooner than later, if he stays. Cincinnati is a solid basketball school and will be a very good team this year.  Memphis and Temple have always been great basketball schools.

The problem lies with the rest of the league. SMU made a splash hire of Larry Brown and that blew up predictably. Houston has history but it's been 25 years of indifferent basketball.

UCF and USF are commonly referred to as "sleeping giants". They must be in a deep coma. East Carolina and Tulane are there because ECU has had some football succes and Tulane is in a big city.

In KenPom's pre-season numbers, the American looks similar to the Big East at the top but once you get out of the top 5, the Big East's worst team is St. John's at 150. Quite frankly, that's pretty good for a team that basically returns nothing more than a few basketballs. The American has 4 teams below that including Tulane at 253. Even DePaul checks in at 113 which would make them the 7th best team in the American with room to spare.

Sadly for the American, once the next wave of realignment hits, UConn, Cincinnati and Memphis are certainly gone. As for a basketball conference in its current state, the top is pretty good weighed down by a weak bottom.