The 2018 American Athletic Conference Tournament, begins March 8 at the Amway Center in Orlando Florida. All 12 conference teams will be participating to grab the automatic berth into March Madness, but the AAC has Cincinnati, Wichita State, and Houston, three teams that are solidly in the field. Bubble teams will be watching closely to make sure an upstart doesn’t steal a bid in this league.
This conference tournament returns to Amway Center in Orlando after being at the XL Center in Hartford, CT last year.. That makes UCF the de facto home team here, but the Knights play at CFE Arena on campus and not in the home of the Orlando Magic.
This is not a particularly deep league, so action will be heavy on the top two teams, with some adventurous bettors looking to grab a solid Houston team. The Cougars blew out Wichita State at home and got blown out on the road, but Houston is one of the two teams to beat Cincinnati in conference play. The other was Wichita State, so that regular season finale win was big for UC to avoid Houston in the semifinals if the chalk holds up.
Top Seeds & Odds from BetDSI.eu
- Cincinnati 27-4 +175
- Wichita State 24-6 +300
- Houston 24-6 +500
- Tulsa 19-11 +800
- Memphis 19-12 +1200
- UCF 18-12 +1400
- Temple 16-14 +1600
- UConn 14-17 +2500
- SMU 16-15 +2000
- Tulane 14-16 +3300
- East Carolina 10-19 +3300
- South Florida 10-21 +5000
Team Records
The top four seeds get byes to the quarterfinals on Friday, so the bottom eight seeds will battle it out in first-round action. Cincinnati scored an emotional win over Wichita State in the regular season finale and it seems likely that those two will face off again, but the Shockers and Bearcats will need to make it to Sunday first. This is Wichita State’s first time in this conference tournament after being a perennial favorite in the Missouri Valley Conference.
The four teams in the semifinals have early games on Saturday, which means that the teams that win the late games at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., respectively, will have a very fast turnaround to play at 3:30 p.m. We’ll see if that is a detriment to the winner of that second semifinal, which will likely be either Wichita State or Houston.
Schedule:
Thursday March 8
#8 UConn vs. #9 SMU
#5 Memphis vs. #12 South Florida
#7 Temple vs. #10 Tulane
#6 UCF vs. #11 East Carolina
Friday March 9
#1 Cincinnati vs. 8/9 winner
#4 Tulsa vs. 5/12 winner
#2 Wichita State vs. 7/10 winner
#3 Houston vs. 6/11 winner
Saturday March 10
1/8/9 vs. 4/5/12
2/7/10 vs. 3/6/11
Sunday March 11
Championship Game at 3 p.m. ET
Outlook & Pick
Bettors would be wise to avoid UConn and SMU. Despite good performances recently in this tournament, their lines are intentionally inflated, and neither team has played that well this season. Houston has some upside at +500, but the Cougars would be an underdog to both Wichita State and Cincinnati in the final two rounds and a money line rollover would likely yield a better return.
The best futures price to take here would be Wichita State at +300. Even though the Shockers just lost to Cincinnati, that line would be pretty competitive between those two teams. Wichita was a slight favorite at home, so the Shockers will probably be +3 or so on a neutral. They’ll be favored over Houston in the semifinals and definitely not +300 in the finals.
There isn’t much value on Cincinnati and the bottom of this league is pretty bad, so there aren’t a whole lot of worthwhile bets out there. Tulsa is a decent team, but running into Cincinnati removes the value from that possible draw. If Tulsa had finished third, maybe there would be a little value, but not at this point.
