In two seasons as a conference commissioner, Mike Aresco has never failed to produce a national champion in men's basketball. Four months ago, his league was also responsible for three of the five first team AP All-Americans, one of whom eventually went on to be named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player.
This all being the case, you'd think the succeeding months would have been chock-full of respect and praise for the American Athletic Conference. Instead, the majority of the offseason attention heaped upon the league has been focused on everything that it has lost instead of everything that it has accomplished.
The 2014-15 season will be one of transition for the AAC, but Aresco is hoping that transition doesn't include a slip off the national radar.
THREE BIGGEST STORYLINES
1. Goodbye Louisville and Rutgers, hello Tulsa, East Carolina and Tulane
The loss of Louisville is a blow that everyone knew was coming, but which is still a massive gut-punch for a league that was known for being remarkably top-heavy in its first year of existence. Rutgers is also leaving.
Tulane and East Carolina have five total NCAA Tournament appearances between them and none since 1995, but the addition of Tulsa is a solid one for Aresco. The Golden Hurricane won Conference USA last season and made the program's 15th appearance in the big dance (they've won 12 games there and thrice advanced past the opening weekend). They lost Danny Manning to Wake Forest, but landed a new head coach in Frank Haith who has spent the past decade in a big five conference, and who was just named the Associated Press Coach of the Year in 2012.
The three C-USA transplants don't come anywhere close to making up for the loss of U of L, but Tulsa brings a solid basketball tradition and should be able to immediately bolster a top half of the league that needs to remain strong in order to keep the nation's eyes off of the mess below it.
2. The Emmanuel Mudiay saga
Five-star point guard Emmanuel Mudiay shocked the recruiting world when he picked SMU over Kentucky (and pretty much every other team in the country) back in August of 2013. The No. 1 pick in SB Nation's most recent 2015 NBA Mock Draft, Mudiay was all set to join an already loaded Mustang squad that figured to be the preseason pick to win the AAC and a darkhorse bet to reach the Final Four.
And then he decided not to.
On July 14, Mudiay announced that he planned to skip having a college career altogether, and would spend his one season after high school playing professionally overseas before becoming draft eligible. Mudiay had been accepted into SMU, but not cleared by the NCAA, something he said did not factor into his decision (he has since been cleared by the NCAA). On July 22, Mudiay made things official by signing a one-year, $1.2 million contract with the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association.
SMU is still going to be okay without the five-star frosh, but there's no question that the loss of his presence is a hit to both Larry Brown's program and an American Athletic Conference looking to keep the eye of the college hoops world.
3. UConn looking to become first repeat champion since '07
Maybe it's because people think their run was somewhat of a fluke, but it's been bizarre how little buzz there's been around Connecticut in the months since the Huskies claimed their fourth national championship.
The most dominant storyline related to UConn has been head coach Kevin Ollie's decision to spurn the NBA and remain in Storrs. After guiding the Huskies through an APR-related postseason ban and to a national title the very next season, it's hard to imagine Ollie's stock ever soaring higher. The result is that the third-year head coach is now one of the highest-paid sideline pacers in college basketball.
Ollie's job gets exponentially tougher in year three as UConn will have to adjust to life in the post-Shabazz era without not just the reigning Final Four MOP, but the graduated Niels Giffey and DeAndre Daniels, who now calls the Toronto Raptors his team. The return of Ryan Boatright is enormous, but Ollie is going to need huge contributions from newcomers like Daniel Hamilton, Sam Cassell Jr. and NC State transfer Rodney Purvis in order to have a shot at repeating.
TRANSFERS: IN
Connecticut
Rodney Purvis (NC State)
East Carolina
Terry Whisnant (Florida State)
Houston
Ronnie Johnson (Purdue)
SMU
Jordan Tolbert (Texas Tech)
Justin Martin (Xavier)
Ben Emelogu (Virginia Tech)
South Florida
Roddy Peters (Maryland)
Temple
Devin Coleman (Clemson)
Jaylen Bond (Texas)
Jesse Morgan (UMass)
Tulane
Malik Morgan (LSU)
TRANSFERS: OUT
Cincinnati
Jermaine Lawrence (Manhattan)
Jeremiah Davis (Ball State)
Connecticut
Leon Tolksdorf (American)
East Carolina
Brandan Stith (Old Dominion)
Houston
TaShawn Thomas (Oklahoma)
Ahmed Hamdy (Lee College)
Danuel House (Texas A&M)
Valentine Izundu (Washington State)
Jaaron Simmons (Ohio)
South Florida
John Egbunu (Florida)
Javontae Hawkins (Eastern Kentucky)
Josh Heath (Georgia Tech)
Zach LeDay (Virginia Tech)
Shemiye McLendon
Jordan Omogbehin
Musa Abdul-Aleem (Troy)
Temple
Anthony Lee (Ohio State)
Tulane
Ray Barreno (New Mexico JC)
Tulsa
Lew Evans (Utah State)
UCF
Steve Haney (Loyola Marymount)
Eugene McCrory (Tampa)
MEANINGLESS SUMMER POWER RANKINGS WITH ONE SENTENCE TWITTER-ESQUE SUMMARIES
1. SMU - Even without Mudiay, Markus Kennedy, Nic Moore and Texas Tech transfer Jordan Tolbert make this the most loaded roster in the conference.
2. Connecticut - Boatright needs to replace Shabazz in the same way Shabazz replaced Kemba, but he's only got one year to do it.
3. Memphis - Josh Pastner loses four senior guards, but the inside duo of Shaq Goodwin and Austin Nichols is going to be tough for anyone in the league to handle.
4. Cincinnati - Probably the biggest mystery in the conference, as Mick Cronin stares life without consensus All-American Sean Kilpatrick, Justin Jackson and Titus Rubles directly in the face.
5. Temple - Losing Anthony Lee is a tough blow, but history says that Fran Dunphy isn't going to let 2013-14 happen again.
6. Tulsa - Frank Haith inherits expectations right out of the gate, as the Golden Hurricane return eight contributors from last year's C-USA champions.
7. Tulane - Louis Dabney and Jonathan Stark might be good enough to carry this squad to a surprise top half of the league finish.
8. Houston - Kelvin Sampson is back in college hoops, but the transfers of Danuel House and TaShawn Thomas have pretty much eliminated the possibility of him having big-time success in year one.
9. East Carolina - Florida State transfer Terry Whisnant should help fill the void left by leading scorer Akeem Richmond.
10. South Florida - Pretty much the entire team transferred after firing of Stan Heath, but Orlando Antigua has done a good job of restocking the roster with transfers, and has made some serious headway on the recruiting trail.
11. Central Florida - The Knights lost their top three scorers from a team that went 4-14 in conference play last season.