American Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Tournament

The American Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Tournament (sometimes known simply as The American Championship) is the conference tournament in basketball for the American Athletic Conference. It is a single-elimination tournament that involves all league schools (12 with the addition of Wichita State for the 2017–18 season). Its seeding is based on regular season records. The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, however the official conference championship is awarded to the team or teams with the best regular season record.

AAC Men's Basketball Tournament
Conference Basketball Championship
SportCollege basketball
ConferenceAmerican Athletic Conference
Number of teams12
FormatSingle-elimination tournament
Current stadiumDickies Arena
Current locationFort Worth, TX
Played2014–present
Last contest2019 AAC Tournament
Current championCincinnati Bearcats
Most championshipsCincinnati Bearcats, SMU Mustangs (2)
TV partner(s)CBS/ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNews
Official websiteTheAmerican.org Men's Basketball

The creation of the conference tournament was a product of the split of the original Big East Conference. While The American is the legal successor to the old Big East, it gave up the rights to the long-standing conference tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York City to the new Big East. As a result, the 2014 tournament was numbered as the first tournament for the conference.

Champions
Year Champion Score Runner-up MVP Venue
2014 Louisville 71–61 Connecticut Russ Smith, Louisville FedEx Forum (Memphis, TN)
2015 SMU 62–54 Connecticut Markus Kennedy, SMU XL Center (Hartford, CT)
2016 Connecticut 72–58 Memphis Daniel Hamilton, Connecticut Amway Center (Orlando, FL)
2017 SMU 71–56 Cincinnati Semi Ojeleye, SMU XL Center (Hartford, CT)
2018 Cincinnati 56–55 Houston Gary Clark, Cincinnati Amway Center (Orlando, FL)
2019 Cincinnati 69–57 Houston Jarron Cumberland, Cincinnati FedEx Forum (Memphis, TN)[1]
2020 Cancelled due to the Coronavirus Pandemic Dickies Arena (Fort Worth, TX)[2]
2021
2022
1.^ As the regular season champion, Cincinnati was originally named the automatic bid to the 2020 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament prior to the cancellation of that event as well.

Tournament championships by school
Member Winners Winning Years Runner-up Runner-up Years
Cincinnati 2 2018, 2019 1 2017
SMU 2 2015, 2017 0
Connecticut 1 2016 2 2014, 2015
Louisville 1 2014 0
Houston 0 2 2018, 2019
Memphis 0 1 2016

See also

References
  1. "College Sports: Memphis set to host AAC basketball tournament in 2019 | SportsDay". Sportsday.dallasnews.com. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  2. McGrath, Shawn. "AAC Men's Basketball Tournament Headed to Fort Worth for 2020-2022". The UConn Blog. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
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