Tell me about it. My ECU Pirates are stuck in the wilderness and it is a shame. They have a pretty decent team, not saying they are championship caliber, but we have our recruiting going in the right direction finally, if we can stop having coaches use us as a stepping stone.
It’s an interesting case of the whole being LESS than the sum of its parts. With metro area interest in Philly, S Fla, C Fla, Houston, Dallas, New England, and DC-Baltimore (Navy’s coming!), it should have plenty of fan base to get good TV contracts and eager recruits. But it’s such a pastiche of unrelated programs, that it has about as much interest to many people as a minor league.
I think the AAC could work in the long-run, but UConn should consider bolting in non-Football sports because by the time AAC football starts clicking, UConn could be irrelevant in basketball. UConn winning the tournament gives the league a couple of years, but the fact that the conference is structured so that an 8 seed wins the tournament shows how bad the conference is for affording its teams proper recognition.
That said, Memphis, Cinci, UConn, Temple and SMU aren’t a terrible core for basketball. If the NCAA would let them schedule those teams to play each other twice, and boost each others’ RPIs, they could be good. But I don’t see the NCAA letting them get away structuring divisions like that.