Tigers open AAC schedule with SMU, UConn

New University of Memphis coach Tubby Smith will get acquainted with two of the American Athletic Conference’s top teams right out of the gate when the Tigers open the league portion of their 2016-17 schedule in December.

The Tigers’ AAC slate was released Thursday. Memphis tips off its conference schedule Dec. 27 against SMU at FedExForum. Nine days later — after a Dec. 30 nonconference game against South Carolina at FedExForum — the Tigers will host 2016 AAC tournament champion Connecticut on Jan. 5 at FedExForum in a rematch of last year’s AAC tourney title game.

Memphis, which went 19-15 a season ago, won’t play SMU again until March 4, when it wraps up its regular-season schedule against the Mustangs at Moody Coliseum in Dallas. SMU finished second in the AAC last year behind regularseason champion Temple and is coming off a one-year NCAA postseason ban under new coach Tim Jankovich, who replaced Larry Brown in July.

The Tigers play at UConn on Feb. 16. That game will be part of a difficult five-game stretch in which Memphis will face Tulsa (Feb. 7 at home), Temple (Feb. 12 at home), UConn (Feb. 16 on road), Cincinnati (Feb. 23 on road) and Houston (Feb. 26 at home).

The Tigers will play Cincinnati (on the road) and East Carolina (Jan. 28 at home) just once and each of the AAC’s eight other teams twice during the regular season.

Memphis finished seventh in league play last season at 8-10 under former coach Josh Pastner, who’s now at Georgia Tech. It was the first time the Tigers had a losing record in conference play since 1999-2000 and just the second time in the last 16 seasons the program failed to win at least 10 games in league play.

Memphis tips off the regular season Nov. 14 against TexasRio Grande Valley at FedExForum.