The 2017–18 American Athletic Conference men's basketball season began with practices in October 2017 followed by the start of the

2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season The 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 10, 2017. The first tournament was the 2K Sports Classic and the season ended with the Final Four at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on April 2, 2018. Practices offici ...

in November. The conference held its media day in October 2017. Conference play begin in December 2017 and concluded on March 3, 2018.

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

won the regular season championship by two games over

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

and

Wichita State Wichita State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 ...

. The American Athletic tournament was held at the

Amway Center Kia Center (formerly Amway Center) is an indoor arena located in the Downtown Orlando, downtown core of Orlando, Florida. The arena is home to the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL, ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...

from March 8–11, 2018. Cincinnati also won the AAC tournament championship, defeating Houston in the championship game. Cincinnati's Gary Clark was named the AAC player of the year while Houston's

Kelvin Sampson Kelvin Dale Sampson (born October 5, 1955) is an American college basketball coach, currently the head coach for the University of Houston of the Big 12 Conference. Early life Sampson was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, to parents who were m ...

was named coach of the year. Cincinnati, Houston, and Wichita State all received bids to the NCAA tournament, but none made it past the Second Round as the conference went 2–3 in the Tournament.

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

received a bid to the

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is an annual men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Since 2023, all rounds of the tournament are played at various sites across the country whi ...

, but lost in the first round. The season marked the first season with Wichita State as a member of the AAC, having joined on July 1, 2017. As a result, the conference included 12 teams for the first time.

Head coaches

Coaching changes

South Florida South Florida, sometimes colloquially shortened to SoFlo, is the Regions of the United States#Florida, southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the two others are ...

head coach

Orlando Antigua Orlando Radhames Antigua Fernández (born February 20, 1973), nicknamed "Hurricane", is a Dominican-American basketball coach and former player who is currently the associate head coach at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was also an ...

was fired after the first 13 games of the 2016–17 season amid academic fraud allegations. Interim head coach

Murry Bartow Murry Linn Bartow (born August 18, 1961) is an American former college basketball coach. As the head coach of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers men's basketball, East Tennessee State Buccaneers, he was twice named the conference coach of the y ...

coach was not retained by the school following the season. On March 14, 2017, the school hired

Brian Gregory Brian Francis Gregory (born December 15, 1966) is an American basketball executive and former coach and player who is the general manager of the Phoenix Suns. He was vice president of player programming for the Phoenix Suns, and a former college ...

as the next head coach.

Coaches

''Notes:'' * Overall and AAC records are from time at current school and are through the end of 2017–18 season. NCAA records include time at current school only. * AAC records are only from 2013–14 season to present, prior conference records not included.

Preseason

Preseason Coaches Poll

AAC Media Day took place October 15, 2017, in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. Cincinnati was picked to win the conference's regular season (seven votes) with Wichita State a close second (five votes). ''first place votes in parentheses''

Preseason All-AAC teams

Regular season

Rankings

Conference matrix

Player of the week

Throughout the regular season, the American Athletic Conference named a player and rookie of the week.

Honors and awards

All-AAC Awards and teams

* Unanimous Selection

Postseason

American Athletic Conference tournament

NCAA tournament

The winner of the AAC tournament, Cincinnati, received the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

NIT

Temple received an at-large bid to the NIT.

NBA draft

The following list includes all AAC players who were drafted in the

2018 NBA draft The 2018 NBA Draft was held on June 21, 2018, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. National Basketball Association teams took turns selecting amateur United States college basketball players and other eligible players, including internationa ...

References

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