On the morning of the final day of the regular season, the No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 seeds for the inaugural AAC Tournament was still up for grabs. By the end of the day, Cincinnati had won a coin toss over Louisville for the top seed, SMU grabbed the No. 3 seed with UConn’s loss and the Huskies took the No. 4 seed.
American Athletic Conference Tournament 2014 bracket: Coin flip gives Cincinnati the nod, but Louisville also a threat
The Bearcats could get revenge for their loss at home to the Cardinals with a title-game matchup in the AAC Tournament.
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While all four of those teams, and No. 5 Memphis, are surely NCAA Tournament-bound, the tight nature of the regular-season race makes the AAC Tournament worth watching.
UConn and Memphis will meet in Thursday night’s quarterfinals. The Huskies swept the teams’ two games in the regular season, but will have a tough task in defeating the Tigers on their home court for the second time in one season. For now, it looks like Cincinnati will get the winner of that game on Friday night in the semis, while Louisville is on track to face SMU. The Bearcats split with UConn this season and swept Memphis, while Louisville swept SMU.
If seeds hold, the Cardinals and Bearcats would square off Saturday night for the American championship. Each team won on the other's home court during the regular season, and Louisville did so on a last-second jumper from Russ Smith to stun the crowd at Fifth Third Arena on Feb. 22.
Here is the full tournament schedule (All times Eastern):
Wednesday:
No. 7 Rutgers vs. No. 10 South Florida, 7 p.m., ESPNU
No. 8 Temple vs. No. 9 Central Florida, 9:30 p.m., ESPN2
Thursday:
No. 3 SMU vs. No. 6 Houston, 1 p.m., ESPNU
Rutgers/South Florida vs. No. 2 Louisville, 3:30 p.m., ESPNU
Temple/Central Florida vs. No. 1 Cincinnati, 7 p.m., ESPNU
No. 4 UConn vs. No. 5 Memphis, 9:30 p.m., ESPNU
Friday:
Thursday afternoon winners, 7 p.m., ESPN/ESPN2
Thursday night winners, 9:30 p.m., ESPN/ESPN2
Saturday:
Championship Game, 6 p.m., ESPN
The full AAC Tournament bracket can be found here:
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