Commissioner's Mike Aresco's remarks from the 2022 American Athletic Conference Basketball Media Days

It is a pleasure to join you all here for our basketball media days. We are extremely excited to formally begin our basketball seasons with our annual media days. We go into every season confident in our place as one of the best conferences in Division I and we expect that to be the case once again. There is no doubt that football is at the center of much of the business of college athletics, but make no mistake – men’s and women’s basketball are essential components to a successful conference, and make no mistake – we are very much a basketball conference.
 
Our pedigree in basketball has been a critical part of our growth from our first season as the American Athletic Conference, when we had a member school win both the men’s and women’s national championships. In our first nine seasons, we have had a combined four NCAA championship teams, two Men’s Final Four teams, six Women’s Final Four teams and an NIT champion. Our roster of head coaches has included multiple Hall of Famers and national coaches of the year. I am obviously not naïve to the fact that some of those accomplishments came from schools like UConn or Louisville, which are no longer in our conference, but the fact remains that those highlights happened as we evolved as The American and we rightfully take great pride in that.
 
Look no further than last season, when Houston’s men’s team reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament and UCF’s women’s team won the conference championship and took UConn to the wire in Storrs in the second round of the NCAAs. Again, those teams did that with The American’s ‘A’ on their uniforms, and we celebrate those accomplishments. I particularly want to acknowledge and congratulate Kelvin Sampson, whose many accomplishments on the court have elevated the University of Houston to a consistent national championship contender, all while being a staunch advocate on behalf of our conference.
 
Going forward, our priorities remain unchanged. Our conference will consist of institutions that are fully committed to competing at the highest level and competing for national championships. They are investing their resources accordingly and it will be a priority of ours to continue as national leaders in governance, compliance, scheduling, officiating and exposure. I am confident that as our conference continues to evolve, we will be able to amplify the great moments from our schools that have enjoyed recent success like North Texas and UAB as well as those with a deeper pedigree like Charlotte.
 
There are a few people that I would like to acknowledge before we begin the formal program. Tulane president Michael Fitts serves as the chair of board, and SMU president Gerald Turner is our vice chair – they both provide tremendous support and guidance on behalf of the conference. I would also like to recognize Rick Hart of SMU as chair of our athletic directors, Jon Gilbert of East Carolina as vice chair, and Lauren Ashman of Memphis, who is chair of our senior woman administrators. Rick is our ADs liaison with our men’s basketball coaches and Arthur Johnson of Temple is our liaison with our women’s basketball coaches group. We have one new athletic director since the last time we gathered, so I would like to welcome Kevin Saal of Wichita State.
 
I want to recognize Karl Hicks, our associate commissioner for basketball, and Erica Holmes, our director of basketball operations, who do a fantastic job on behalf of our schools with the administration of all aspects of our men’s and women’s basketball programs. I know that many of you joined me in celebrating Tom Odjakjian, who retired from the conference last week after a legendary 40-year career; and I would like to recognize Kauri Black - a former basketball student-athlete at Tulsa incidentally - who has been elevated to our senior staff to oversee our television and multimedia efforts.
 
I also want to acknowledge the efforts of our officiating coordinators – Mike Eades in men’s basketball and Debbie Williamson in women’s basketball. Both are highly respected and give us access to the highest-rated game officials nationally.
 
As I mentioned earlier, we have always had an outstanding roster of head coaches and this year will be no exception. We have three new head coaches in men’s basketball, as we welcome Michael Schwartz at East Carolina, Rob Lanier at SMU and Eric Konkol at Tulsa. And in women’s basketball, we welcome two new coaches - Sytia Messer at UCF and Diane Richardson at Temple.
 
I am particularly excited about the influx of coaching talent among our women’s programs.  We have some of the best coaches in the nation with veterans like Jose Fernandez at South Florida and Lisa Stockton at Tulane, but we had three new coaches join us last year – Toyelle Wilson at SMU, Katrina Merriweather at Memphis and Angie Nelp at Tulsa. All three had to undertake something of a rebuilding effort and I could not be more pleased with the direction that those programs after only one year. SMU and Tulsa both returned to postseason play in the WNIT and Memphis was a strong postseason contender as well. We will be transitioning to an 18-game league schedule in women’s basketball beginning next season, and that is a direct result of the top-to-bottom depth of our conference.
 
I briefly mentioned the changes that are coming to our conference – but this is also a pivotal time for college basketball and dare I say all of college athletics. In many ways, we are seeing that after many years of glacial change, we have seen more fundamental changes in the way college athletics operates in the last two years than perhaps at any point since the formation of the NCAA in 1906. Globally, the introduction of compensation for student-athletes’ name, image and likeness have opened the door to countless opportunities for our students to be treated in the same manner as any other student with an extraordinary talent. The modifications to transfer rules give student-athletes more freedom over their college destinations than ever before, and we have seen that first hand in our men’s and women’s basketball ranks.
 
And there is more to come. Just last week, the NCAA Transformation Committee forwarded its initial recommendations to the NCAA Board, including the potential for expanded fields in postseason tournaments. This is a concept that we as a conference will study intensely with our athletic directors to evaluate the impact not only on our conference, but on the greater good of college sports. The NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments in basketball are among the great sporting events in America, and any proposed fundamental changes need to be carefully vetted and need to be in the best interest of student-athletes.
 
Along those lines, I do applaud the Division I Council for its plan to introduce an additional NCAA-funded, 32-team women’s tournament to provide additional high-level postseason opportunities. This is an important step in the path to providing equal opportunities on a national level for our women’s and men’s basketball student-athletes. Dan Gavitt and Lynn Holtzman do an excellent job in finding innovative ways to enhance college basketball, particularly in this time of change.
 
When talking about the postseason, I would be remiss if I did not mention our own American Athletic Conference Championships in Fort Worth. This past season was the first in which we were really able to stage our tournament as a week-long festival of basketball at Dickies Arena, which is as fine a venue as there is in this country. Our women’s and men’s teams have had nothing but positive things to say about the amenities and the first-class treatment they receive at our championship, and I want to thank Matt Homan and his staff for their continued support and I would like to acknowledge Bobby Weygand, our associate commissioner for sport administration, and his staff for their work to provide an outstanding championship experience for our student-athletes and fans.
 
In closing, I would like to thank the members of the media for joining us for these next two days. I know that you will enjoy hearing from our coaches and student-athletes, who continue to be outstanding ambassadors for our conference.