UConn men’s basketball: American Athletic Conference releases preseason poll and awards

The American Athletic Conference released the results of the annual preseason coaches’ poll on Monday and UConn men’s basketball was selected to finish fifth by the 12 coaches in the conference, garnering 79 points.

All of the first-place votes went to either Cincinnati (seven) or Wichita State (five), who were neck-and-neck at 116 and 115 points, respectively.

UCF finished third in the poll with 93 points, just ahead of SMU’s 91.

Houston (72 points), Temple (68 points), Tulsa (52 points), Memphis (36 points), Tulane (30 points), East Carolina (24 points) and USF (16 points) round out the poll.

In addition to the poll, the conference also released the preseason awards and Alterique Gilbert reprised his role as preseason rookie of the year.

He was given the honor prior to last season, but he played in three games and suffered a season-ending shoulder injury against Loyola-Marymount.

Jalen Adams was also named to the all-conference first team after a season where he dished out a conference-leading 6.1 assists per game and was ninth in the conference at 14.4 points per game in 35.5 minutes per game, the sixth-highest total in The American.