American Athletic Conference: Wichita is here now what?

By Chuck Booth | Apr 9, 2017

Mar 19, 2017; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Wichita State Shockers cheerleaders perform against the Kentucky Wildcats during the first half in the second round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /

The American Athletic Conference took a large step forward with the addition of Wichita State.

The Shockers were rumored to be in talks to join the American Athletic Conference since their exit to Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament but it became official as they were unanimously voted in to join the league for the 2017/18 season. The move makes total sense for the conference and for Wichita State who were tired of being shafted by the selection committee due to the deterioration of the Missouri Valley Conference.

Such is life for a mid-major conference as their best teams (Creighton, Wichita) are poached by bigger conferences lessening their ability to compete. It’s a harsh reality but it’s life in the cash grab of the NCAA. It doesn’t pay to be a good team in a mediocre conference and it also doesn’t pay to be a middling conference just outside of the power five(six).

It’s why this is one of the rare win-win moves for both Wichita State and the American Athletic Conference as a whole. Wichita will join a competitive conference that they still have a good chance at winning (and if they do they’ll get the seed that they deserve in the NCAA Tournament). The conference as a whole is showing that it is done picking up the pieces of the Big East exit and that it ready to move forward into the new era of the American Athletic Conference, one in which the teams within it have a realistic chance of competing for a NCAA title.

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The members of the AAC are as follows; Wichita, SMU, Temple, Cincinnati, UCF, UConn, USF, ECU, Tulsa, Memphis, Tulane, and Houston.

While it’s a top heavy Conference with SMU, Cincinnati, and Wichita leading the way, the AAC has improved and will only continue to get better. Temple and UCF both look set for improvement in the 2017/18 seasons. UConn and Memphis won’t stay down for long (right?) meaning that the AAC can look forward to some multiple bid seasons in the near future.

It will be interesting to see how quickly recruitment in the conference picks up but the quality coaching to navigate the NCAA Tournament is there. The AAC is no longer the Big East misfits, they’re here and they’re ready to play with the big boys. The question now is, are the major conferences ready?

The American Athletic Conference has stated their intentions to swing with the big boys but what does it mean going forward?

In the short term it will be a lot of shuffling in order to reorganize the schedule for the 2017/18 season and unless another team is added it will also be an unbalanced schedule. Once that’s done it should be interesting to see how the middle of the conference performs with the Shockers in town.

Next: Can The Temple Owls defy the odds?

Initially, Wichita was slated to join for the 2018/19 season which would give teams another recruiting class to prepare for them but now they won’t have the warning. It will cause the schedule to be more of a grind than it usually is but if teams like Temple are able to nick a win off of Wichita State it will give them a proper team to boost their resume for the NCAA Tournament.

More teams into the NCAA Tournament is the goal for the American Athletic Conference and the addition of Wichita State gives the conference that chance.