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There have been some reports on today's message boards that the American was not included in a list of basketball "power conferences" presented on ESPN in their reporting on the Sweet Sixteen teams in the NCAA tournament.
In addition, although it hasn't received much discussion since it was published in 2020, an "ESPN Insider" wrote an opinion piece with a title suggesting that the network may not be referring to the American as a "Major 7" conference:
"Why the term 'Power 5' should actually be 'Power 6' when it comes to men's college basketball"
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...basketball
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It's too soon to know whether the term "Major 7" is in danger of being replaced with the term "Power 6" more widely in discussions about college basketball, but it may be worth bearing in mind that the American only began to be referred to as a "Major 7" conference around 2017, when it became known that Wichita State would be joining the conference.
"Adding Wichita State means the AAC must now be counted as a 'Major 7' conference"
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basket...onference/
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After sending 4 teams to the NCAA tourney in 2019, the conference has had lackluster seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21, due in part to coaching issues and transitions at Cincy, Wichita State, and Temple, with only 2 or at most 3 potential NCAA teams per season.
In addition, the conference has hit a couple of speed bumps this season:
1) This is the first year in which only one AAC team had a seeding high enough to guarantee a game in the first full round of 64 teams.
2) The 2021 tournament was the first since the inception of the AAC in which only one conference team played in the first round of the tourney.
3) This is the first time since the inception of the AAC that three or more non-A5 conferences have had more teams in the first round than the American has had.
--The Big East (4 teams), Atlantic 10 (2 teams), MWC (2 teams), MVC (2 teams), and WCC (2 teams) all had more teams than the AAC had in the first round of the 2021 conference.
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With facts such as these to deal with, the only facts that support the proposition that the 2020-21 AAC should have been considered a "major" basketball conference are these:
-The AAC was still the #7 conference in the 2020-21 rankings.
-The AAC received as many or more NCAA and NIT bids as any other non-A5 conference other than the Big East did, and has had as many teams in the two 2021 tourneys as the Atlantic 10, MWC, and Big East has (by virtue of the fact that 3 Big East teams turned down NIT invitations).
-Among the non-A5 conferences, the AAC had the second-highest ranked team in the NCAA tournament.
-Whether or not a conference's status as a "Major" or "mid-major" conference is usually thought of as an evaluation that takes place over 5 or 10 seasons, and shouldn't necessarily be affected by one or two sub-par seasons.
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These points may be enough to convince most of us that the AAC should still be considered a "Major 7" conference, but will the important question is whether they'll be found convincing enough by sports journalists and college fans around the nation.
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