Ready for action
Huskies kick off AAC season in Cincinnati
CINCINNATI — The American Athletic Conference is a lot of things. Perhaps most notably, it is a league largely devoid of regional, traditional rivalries.
The closest UConn has had to a rival over the past six seasons is Cincinnati, one of three holdovers from the old Big East (along with UConn and USF) to wind up in the AAC.
Like UConn and USF, Cincinnati has spent much of the past six seasons looking for a way to leave the AAC and land in a Power 5 league. Unlike UConn, which is heading off to the Big East next season, it hasn’t found a way out yet.
And so, this season marks the final in which the Huskies and Bearcats will meet as AAC foes. They will face each other at least twice, and possible again in the AAC tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. But on Wednesday, in the 201920 AAC opener for both teams, UConn (93) and Cincinati (75) will meet for the final time as AAC rivals inside Fifth Third Arena (7 p.m., CBS Sports Network).
And that’s probably just as well for UConn. Fifth Third Arena is one of four road sites — along with Tulsa’s Reynolds Center, SMU’s Moody Coliseum and Wichita State’s Koch
Arena — in which the Huskies have never won as members of the AAC. UConn is 06 inside the building since the league started in 201314.
In fact, you could make an argument that the UConnCincinnati “rivalry” has hardly been a rivalry at all. Cincinnati has won the last seven meetings between the teams, no matter the venue — Fifth Third Arena, Gampel Pavilion, XL Center. The last time UConn beat the Bearcats, it took a miracle Jalen Adams 75footer and four overtimes to do so.
So, absent a 75foot prayer in the 2016 AAC tournament, the Huskies would be working on 10 straight losses to the Bearcats entering Wednesday night.
That’s not a rivalry. UConn has come close in recent seasons. The Huskies lost in overtime their last trip to Fifth Third on Jan. 12, 2019. Six weeks later, Cincy won by four in Hartford.
Now, the Huskies’ final trip to Fifth Third might represent their best chance to finally pull off a victory. For one, longtime head coach Mick Cronin is no longer skulking the sidelines at Cincy. He has taken over the reins at UCLA (where he’s having his own troubles) and been replaced by John Brannen, who moves about 15 miles up the road from Northern Kentucky University, where he coached the prior five seasons.
Brannen has clashed practically since Day One with Jarron Cumberland, the reigning AAC Player of the Year. Cumberland has been benched a couple of games due to a “coaches’ decision,” made a couple of baffling, lategame mistakes in a home loss to Colgate on Dec. 14 and generally hasn’t played all that well (13.3 ppg, 3.2 rpg).
UConn, of course, hasn’t played very well on the road anywhere — no matter the opponent. The Huskies had lost a remarkable 15 straight true road games before finally breaking through on March 10, 2019 at ECU. UConn played well away from home at the Charleston Classic in November, beating Buffalo, crushing Miami and losing to Xavier in double overtime.
The Huskies kick off their final tour of the AAC with a pair of road games, traveling to USF on Saturday. It was at USF almost exactly a year earlier where the Huskies squandered a 13point firsthalf lead and lost, 7668, in their conference opener.
“I remember last year, we dropped the first one to South Florida, and that put us in a bad place, mentally,” senior guard Christian Vital recalled. “So, we’re just looking forward to (a better start).”