Category archive: Louisville Cardinals
The American Athletic Conference is without question a conference in transition, but make no mistake about it: This league has teams with rich basketball traditions.
No, this is not the ACC, the Big Ten or your father's Big East, but it is a league that will put a minimum of four teams in the NCAA tournament this season, with the potential for more. The biggest question for this conference moving forward is whether it can establish an identity once Louisville departs for the ACC and Rutgers leaves for the Big Ten.
In the meantime, let's take a look at the contenders and potential surprise teams from the AAC this season in what should be a competitive conference race.
The contenders
Louisville Cardinals
Rick Pitino's team is looking to make the Final Four for the third consecutive season, and while this season's edition will miss Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng, there is a ton of returning talent.
Backcourt: The key to the Cardinals' talented backcourt will be how Russ Smith and junior college All-American Chris Jones coexist. Both are explosive off the bounce but need the ball to be effective, so someone needs to manage the game and be a facilitator.
To read Seth Greenberg's full article on the AAC, you must be an ESPN Insider.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
College Basketball Experts
Fran Fraschilla is an analyst for ESPN and was previously the head coach at New Mexico, St. John's and Manhattan.
Joe Lunardi is the resident bracketologist for ESPN.
Seth Greenberg is an analyst for ESPN and was previously the head coach at Virginia Tech, South Florida and Long Beach State.
