AAC's Mike Aresco addresses postseason tourney, coronavirus, more

Mike Aresco, commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, spoke to media representatives via teleconference Monday morning to discuss everything regarding this week's AAC Men's Basketball Tournament at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.

"I think it will be a great event. We look forward to tremendous competition," Aresco said. "There's a lot at stake for our conference, and for the teams, it'll be very intense. Most of our league has a shot to go very far and win that tournament."

Among the many topics of discussion from Aresco were the NCAA Tournament goals of the AAC, plans moving forward without Connecticut, and -- perhaps most timely -- preparation for the conference tournament with the coronavirus (COVID-19) dominating national and global news.

ON THE AAC OVERALL ...

"We had another excellent regular season. This year, and I think it's been true in the past, we've been an underrated league. I think we've got a lot of talented teams that play hard. We've got a lot of young players. When you watch the SMU- Houston overtime game, you realize that combined, there's only one senior on those rosters. This is a transitional year for us. We had more veteran teams last year with. ... This year, our goal is obviously to get three bids and possibly four."

ON DICKIES ARENA ...

"We have a terrific venue in Fort Worth, and I think anyone who attends is going to be incredibly impressed with it. I got a tour of it recently; it's a terrific place. They've just done everything right. It's a beautiful, brand-new arena, and people are going to love being there. Our teams, our coaches, our fans, everyone."

ON THE AAC REGULAR SEASON ...

"It's been an exciting regular season. As it turns out, we have tri-champions in Cincinnati, Houston and Tulsa. Cincinnati, with the tiebreaker, is our No. 1 seed. Houston two and Tulsa three. Over 25% of our games were decided by either one possession or went overtime. That's the highest percentage of any major conference. We've had eight games decided by a single point, and we had two this weekend that affected tournament seeding. We have had some spectacular games all year long. They have been incredibly competitive, and that's what I expect from this league."

ON THE DEPTH OF THE AAC ...

"The depth is the best I've seen, and that's the biggest issue for us. The depth of the league, top to bottom, has been strong. When you have coaches like we do now, it's the best group of coaches we've ever had. I don't think there's any question about it. ... we've had 10 of our coaches who have coached in the NCAA Tournament, and two have had outstanding NBA careers to start their head coaching journeys.

"In summing up, this is a conference that's on the move. This is a conference that's going to be a major player. It already is, but it's going to be an even more significant player in college basketball as we move forward. We've got all the great coaches in place. We've got the resources. We've got a young league. This is a transitional year; our teams are all going to get better. The future's very bright. We're excited, and we think that going forward, we're going to continue to be a multibid league."

ON THE CORONAVIRUS ...

"In terms of the coronavirus situation, right now, everything is a go in Fort Worth. We have open lines of communication with the appropriate local and state public health officials, not only in Fort Worth but also at the site of other conference championships. We're going to work closely with them to monitor the situation, and we'll determine what we need to do as the situation requires. We've also been in touch with the NCAA on these issues. We've reached out to our member institutions, as well, and we've discussed what action plans they may have. We're also taking reasonable health-related precautions at our championships, providing additional alcohol-based hand sanitizer station in team and fan areas.

"We're not medical people, we're not doctors, but we're taking our advice from the CDC and from local health authorities. We're placing CDC information regarding coronavirus in the team and fan areas of our championship arenas and sites and providing information in team-information packets. We will be, as we should be, on alert for student-athletes, team party or staff members who exhibit any coronavirus or flu-like symptoms. We'll obviously have them seek immediate medical attention and instruction and limit exposure to others.

"These are the basic precautions that I think around the country you're going to see conferences and leagues taking. We're hoping we don't have any disruption, but if we do, we'll have alternate plans, and we'll keep everyone posted. We're not trying to induce any panic, but we understand that this is a serious situation."

ON TEAM HANDSHAKES (IN LIEU OF THE CORONAVIRUS) ...

"The other thing we have done, in view of these concerns, we've eliminated our requirement of pre- and post-game handshakes between teams for the regular season and conference championships for men's and women's basketball. Teams are encouraged to determine what their procedures are. People shake hands, but we've eliminated that as one of the traditions. Down the road, we'll obviously be able to bring it back, but we're confident that everybody will understand what we're trying to accomplish."

MORE ON THE CORONAVIRUS ...

"We've talked to the people in Fort Worth -- Matt Homan, the general manager of the site, and all the authorities -- and right now, we're going by CDC with the risk low. We haven't had the kind of cluster or outbreak that could potentially put the event in jeopardy. We've talked about contingency plans, the possibility you could have the event without fans or not have the event, but right now, that is not what we anticipate. We'll have to wait and see. Obviously, with the NCAA Tournament, you can't postpone an event in that sense, unless the NCAA were to postpone its event. We don't necessarily see that happening. We're looking at all the various contingencies that could come into play."

MORE ON TEAM HANDSHAKES ...

"We've eliminated the requirement of it, because it's been something that's been a traditional thing. We've suggested they not do it, but if they do it, there are no sanctions. We think ultimately, that is one of the protocols that CDC has been talking about that could help this whole situation. You could argue that with the players, there's a lot of interaction during the game. But it's just something we thought was a precaution we should take. It does disrupt a longstanding tradition in our conference, but we think at this point, we should be doing everything we can.

"The hand washing and cleaning and using the sanitizer is of the utmost importance regardless of what people are doing. That's something we've been stressing, too, and that's why we've made sure we're going to have stations more than we normally have in team and fan areas. I think that's really important."

ON NEXT SEASON'S FORMAT WITHOUT CONNECTICUT ...

"We're going to have to take a look at that. I'll sit down with our basketball people, and we'll go through it. Obviously, we're not going to have UConn with us. Whether we add a 12th team, it wouldn't be in 2020-21. It'll be tweaked; I think the basic structure will be similar, but obviously, we're going to go with 11 at this point. We'll go back to what we did when we had 11 teams. The bracket will look very similar. We played with 11 teams for a good part of our history. I don't know if we'll make a change from what it looked like when we had 11 teams, but we'll study it."