Get To Know a College Basketball Mid-Major: American Conference

You know all about the Power 6 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 31 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness. It’s time for you to get to know a mid-major: this time, it’s the American Conference. The American Conference has undergone a few name changes over the years. From 1979 through 2013, it was known as the Big East, before splitting off into two separate conferences and dropping that moniker to become the American Athletic Conference (the current Big East conference kept the name). The “Athletic” portion of the AAC is gone now, too, leaving it as simply the American Conference. It has 13 college basketball teams on both the men’s and women’s side, and the conference tournament rules stipulate that just the first 10 in the standings will be eligible to compete for the American championship. The top two seeds get a bye all the way to the semifinals, while the third- and fourth-ranked teams get a single bye to the quarterfinals. That makes finishing at the top in the regular season a massive win on its own, since it leaves those two teams just a pair of wins away from a conference title. American — Men’s College Basketball Leaders: Just which teams will emerge as the top two seeds — or even the top four — remains unclear in the American to this point. Tulsa and Charlotte are tied atop the conference at 7-2, though the Golden Hurricanes are 19-3 overall while the 49ers are 13-9. South Florida and Temple are next up at 6-3, with FAU outside the byes at 6-4; UAB, Wichita State and Memphis are all 5-4, Tulane is 4-5, and as of now both UTSA (0-9 in conference play) and East Carolina (2-7) would miss the tournament entirely. If things continue as they have, one of North Texas or Rice will also fail to qualify, depending on how tiebreakers shake out, if necessary — both teams are 3-6 and in ninth. Tulsa is the top team in the American per the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, coming in at 46th through Feb. 1. South Florida is next, at 62nd, then Wichita State at 90th. FAU (108th), Memphis (112th) and UAB (121st) round out the teams in the top 150. Charlotte, despite its conference record, ranks 152nd in NET: it plays Tulsa on Feb. 18, a chance to prove the 49ers are better than the tool suggests. The Golden Hurricanes are led by a trio of scoring guards: seniors David Green and Miles Barnstable, as well as junior Tylen Riley. Green leads the team in scoring at 16.5 per game, followed by Riley (15.1) and Barnstable (14.9). Green also leads the team in rebounds with 5 per game, with Riley dishing out a team-high 3.9 assists per game — no one else on the squad has more than 1.8. While no one on Tulsa stands out in rebounds, the team does a solid job as a unit — the Golden Hurricanes rank 72nd in Division I in rebounds per game, at 38.3. They are the team to beat in the conference, but with two other top-100 teams in NET and Charlotte currently tied in the standings, that Tulsa will win the American is not a given. That tournament championship might be the lone way into the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, as well. In 2025’s tourney, the American (then the AAC) received just its automatic bid for the conference championship winner, Memphis, and no at-large bid. In 2024 and in 2023, the American (then the AAC) did receive both its automatic bid (UAB and Memphis, respectively) as well as an at-large bid in each season, so it’s not impossible that two teams make it. However, South Florida is the second-best team in the conference by NET, and is presently on the bubble — it will take a strong end-of-season showing, as well as a quality run in the American tournament, for an at-large bid to be granted to the conference this season. American — Women’s College Basketball Leaders: While Rice’s men’s team might not even make the conference tournament at this rate, the women are atop the standings as the lone undefeated team in the American at 9-0. East Carolina holds the second double-bye with an 8-2 record, with Tulsa (7-2) and South Florida (6-3) in possession of the single bye spots. North Texas (6-4), UTSA (5-4), Temple (4-5), Tulane (3-5), Charlotte (3-6) and FAU (3-7) round out the conference tourney qualifiers, while Memphis (2-6), Wichita State (2-7) and UAB (1-8) would be out of the running if the season ended today. Rice is also the top team in the conference by NET, at 66th. South Florida comes in at 82nd — while behind in both NET and the standings, it’s worth pointing out that the Bulls had a competitive non-conference schedule that saw them play in six Quad 1 games. That’s the kind of experience that could pay off come conference tournament time, especially against Rice or East Carolina, which have played in one and zero Quad 1 matchups each, respectively. And it’s also part of why Rice and South Florida are so close in Net Rating, which adjusts for strength of schedule and competition: the Owls come in at 70th there and the Bulls 74th. The two got there in different ways, as South Florida has the top offense in the conference at 102.31 points per 100 possessions, good for 62nd-best in the country and led by senior guard Edyn Battle’s 14.8 points per game, while Rice’s defense allows 82.87 points per 100 possessions, 55th-best, and ranks 64th in rebounds with 40 per game, led by senior guard Hailey Adams’ average of 11 boards and conference-leading 1.6 blocks per game. The Owls and Bulls are also the only top-100 teams in the conference in NET, with North Texas (113th), East Carolina (123rd), Temple (131st), UTSA (132nd) and Tulsa (135th) ranking within the top-150. North Texas is the only other squad to crack the top-100 in Net Rating; the Mean Green’s defense ranks right behind Rice’s nationally, but lacks the offense to keep up with either of the Owls or Bulls. Like with the men, the conference tournament is the only likely path to March Madness. In 2025 and 2024, the American received just the automatic bid for its tournament winners, South Florida and Rice, but in 2023 it did receive an at-large bid, as well. Given the NET ratings of the Bulls and Owls, it’s possible the American pulls it off again, but the sheer volume of teams the SEC and Big Ten are expected to bring to March makes anything more than a possibility difficult to entertain at this point.