Nothing more irrelevant than the final Top 25 ballot of the season. Teams only care about their seedings right now for the NCAA tournament, not their rankings.

But, had to submit one, so here's mine. Also, AP voters must submit three All-America teams, a national player of the year and a national coach of the year. I included my votes for those here, as well (and gave the AAC a little much-needed love. How the heck did UCLA get in over Temple, anyway?).

1. Kentucky
2. Wisconsin
3. Villanova
4. Duke
5. Arizona
6. Virginia
7. Gonzaga
8. Northern Iowa
9. Notre Dame
10. Iowa State
11. Maryland
12. Kansas
13. Wichita State
14. Utah
15. SMU
16. Oklahoma
17. Baylor
18. Louisville
19. Arkansas
20. Georgetown
21. Oregon
22. North Carolina
23. Michigan State
24. VCU
25. Butler

ALL-AMERICAN TEAMS

First team
Willie Cauley-Stein, Kentucky
Jahlil Okafor, Duke
Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin
Jerian Grant, Notre Dame
D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State

Second team
Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky
Kris Dunn, Providence
Georges Niang, Iowa State
Tyus Jones, Duke
T.J. McConnell, Arizona

Third team
Kevin Pangos, Gonzaga
Montrezl Harrell, Louisville
Malcolm Brogdon, Virginia
Ryan Boatright, UConn
LaDontae Henton, Providence


PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Jahlil Okafor, Duke


COACH OF THE YEAR
Fran Dunphy, Temple

Happy to be an Associated Press Top 25 voter again this season. Our preseason Top 25 and five-man All-American team is due by Friday. The first AP Top 25 will be released on Oct. 31, with the All-America team moving on Nov. 3.

Here's what I'll be submitting:

1.       Wisconsin

2.       Kentucky

3.       Arizona

4.       Duke

5.       Kansas

6.       North Carolina

7.       Louisville

8.       Texas

9.       Wichita State

10.   Iowa State

11.   Villanova

12.   UConn

13.   Florida

14.   Gonzaga

15.   Virginia

16.   SMU

17.   San Diego State

18.   Michigan State

19.   Virginia Commonwealth

20.   Michigan

21.   Harvard

22.   Ohio State

23.   Stanford

24.   Syracuse

25.  Memphis

All-America:
Montrezl Harrell, Louisville
Sam Dekker, Wisconsin
Georges Niang, Iowa State
Marcus Paige, North Carolina
Fred Van Vleet, Wichita State

I’ve never particularly liked the Wisconsin men’s basketball team. Just hasn’t been very aesthetically pleasing over the years, a bit too … boring, we’ll say. Yeah, boring.

But the Badgers won me over last season, led by big Frank Kaminsky and dynamic Sam Dekker (who’s anything but boring). Now, pretty much everyone’s back from last year’s Final Four team that fell a few points short of a date with UConn in the national championship game. That’s why I’m picking them as my preseason No. 1.

It seems most people are going with Kentucky, the team that beat the Badgers in last year’s Final Four, after all. The Wildcats have a record nine McDonald’s All-Americans on their roster, including key players from last year’s runners-up like the Harrison twins (Aaron and Andrew) as well as Willie Cauley-Stein (whose injury for the national championship game undoubtedly helped UConn).

But Kentucky also loses key players like Julius Randle and James Young. They’ve got great freshmen coming in, led by Karl Towns, but so often we’ve seen teams with great newcomers have trouble jelling and, ultimately, disappointing. 

I'll side with teams like Wisconsin -- veteran, experienced teams who truly love being in college and value their entire collegiate experience -- over teams stacked with talent but, too often, have too many guys with one eye on the next level and perhaps aren't buying into the whole team concept.

Sure, every now and then there’s a team like 2012 Kentucky, which rolled to a national title behind freshmen and sophomores, led by Anthony Davis. But look no further than 2014 Kentucky. Remember, some pundits were predicting an undefeated season for a team led largely by freshmen? The Wildcats wound up disappointing through much of the season and were a No. 8 seed for the NCAA tournament. Kentucky started to come together at just the right time, of course (John Calipari deserves a lot of credit there) and wound up in the national title game … where it fell to UConn.

Ah yes, UConn. What to do with the Huskies? It’s funny to look at the preseason coaches’ poll and see four of the teams UConn beat in last year’s NCAA tournament (Kentucky, Florida, Villanova and Iowa State) all ranked ahead of the Huskies. But it’s somewhat understandable.

The graduation of Shabazz Napier is huge. Yes, Ryan Boatright is a terrific player who really matured last season – particularly in the postseason – as a true point guard, a leader and a defensive whiz. Yes, Amida Brimah should be one of the best shot-blockers in the nation. Yes, Rodney Purvis, Daniel Hamilton and Sam Cassell, Jr. are outstanding additions. Yes, Terrence Samuel boasts championship pedigree, and if Omar Calhoun can turn things around … watch out!

But it’s hard to quantify just how much Shabazz meant to this program that past couple of seasons. There were so many games in which his late heroics saved the Huskies from defeat. Never mind the obvious ones like Florida and Indiana last season; don’t forget South Florida on the road, where Napier delivered an inspirational halftime speech (after the Huskies had played their worst half of the season and trailed by six), then scored 11 of UConn’s final 14 points in a 61-56 win. Or how about against Quinnipiac in the 2012 Paradise Jam, when he scored 23 of his 29 points in the game’s final 3 ½ minutes of regulation and two overtimes? Those are just two of too many other examples to list.

I like UConn this season. There’s a lot of talent, but I see it taking a while for it all to jell together. It’s going to take a couple of months for guys like Hamilton, Purvis and Cassell, Jr. to learn how to play together, share the ball and do what’s best for the team. I don’t worry about Boatright – I think he knows he’s got to prove to NBA scouts that he’s a distributor and that he can make his teammates better. He’ll do that. But there are a lot of shots to go around, and it’ll be interesting to see how everybody co-exists. It’ll also be interesting to see if UConn still has some long-distance threats now that Napier, DeAndre Daniels and Niels Giffey are gone. Early returns are that Cassell may just be that guy.

So, I like the Huskies more than some (for instance, Lindy’s magazine has them ranked No. 36. Even though I did the UConn and AAC season previews for this edition, I’ll take no blame for that low ranking. Wasn’t me). However, it wouldn’t shock me at all if SMU beats out UConn for the AAC championship. If Emmanuel Mudiay had stayed at SMU rather than zipped off to China, that might be a no-brainer. Even without Mudiay, however, the Mustangs return just about everyone from last year’s 27-10, NIT runners-up, including all-AAC picks Nic Moore and Markus Kennedy, former McDonald’s All-American Keith Frazier and talented Xavier transfer Justin Martin. And, let’s not forget, SMU beat UConn last season both times they met. This Larry Brown guy can coach a little bit.

In fact, I was prepared to rank SMU even higher and pick it to win the AAC until reports the other day that Kennedy may be sidelined for at least the early part of the season due to academic issues. If Kennedy misses part (or all) of the season, it’s a big blow to the Mustangs.

As you likely know by now, UConn is the No. 7 seed in the East Region and will face St. Joseph's on Thursday at 6:55 p.m. at First Niagara Bank Arena in Buffalo. Win and the Huskies will likely face another Philly team, ol' Big East pal Villanova, on Saturday.

And, if UConn wins its first two games, it advances to the East Regionals at Madison Square Garden.

Pretty good draw for the Huskies. For one, they don't have to leave the state of New York on their bid for an improbable run to the Final Four. And certainly, UConn can beat any of the teams it could face this week. Of course, there's little doubt that the Huskies could lose to either St. Joe's or No. 2-seeded Villanova, as well.

It's going to be that kind of tournament.

We'll have plenty more in the coming days. Here's tonight's story on UConn players tuning into the CBS Selection Show this year, as opposed to not watching a year ago.

And here's some video of Kevin Ollie and DeAndre Daniels talking about their tourney invites:

The inaugural American Athletic Conference postseason awards will be released this week. On Tuesday, the all-conference teams and all-rookie team will be released, and on Wednesday at a luncheon in Memphis, the individual award-winners will be announced.

There will be two, five-man all-conference teams this season, with no honorable mention selections. In the past in the Big East, players who appeared on at least 50 percent of the coach’s ballots earned honorable mention status. No players earned such recognition this season, however.

With all that in mind, here would be my all-AAC picks:

FIRST TEAM:

Russ Smith, Louisville

Montrezl Harrell, Louisville

Sean Kilpatrick, Cincinnati

Justin Jackson, Cincinnati

Shabazz Napier, UConn

SECOND TEAM:

Nic Moore, SMU

Markus Kennedy, SMU

Joe Jackson, Memphis

Shaq Goodwin, Memphis

Ta’Shawn Thomas, Houston

ALL-ROOKIE TEAM:

John Egbunu, USF

Chris Perry, USF

Austin Nichols, Memphis

Terry Rozier, Louisville

Amida Brimah, UConn

Sorry, I don’t see either Ryan Boatright or DeAndre Daniels getting the nod. Not the way they’ve played the last couple of weeks. Isaiah Sykes of UCF might be more deserving than Thomas, but Houston did better in the league standing, so I gave the edge to Thomas.

As for the individual awards, here’s how my ballot would look (and remember, the media doesn't vote for any of this, it's the league's SID's ... er, coaches who vote):

Player of the Year: Shabazz Napier, UConn: This isn’t homerism, it’s simply having a front-row seat to a terrific season. Other than Sean Kilpatrick, there’s not a single player more valuable to his team than Napier. Russ Smith is great, but without him, Louisville probably still finishes at least in the top three of the conference. Without Napier? Shudder to think. Napier’s overall stats are better than Kilpatrick’s (except for scoring), but if Kilpatrick wins it, it’s no crime. Even if Smith wins it, I wouldn’t be outraged. He was the preseason player of the year, which the coaches also vote for, so that may give him an edge. But to me, it’s Shabazz.

Coach of the Year: Larry Brown, SMU. Really a two-man race between Brown and Cincy’s Mick Cronin. Cincinnati was picked to finish fourth in the league and wound up co-champs. SMU was picked to finish sixth and finished tied for third. So that’s kind of a wash. Cronin also had Kilpatrick, while Brown didn’t have a true star (though you’ve got to love the way Nic Moore plays – unless you’re a UConn fan). Personally, I think Brown did the better job, resurrecting a program that was 15-17 overall a year ago and 5-11 in Conference USA and getting them, almost certainly, into the Big Dance. But it could go either way.

Rookie of the Year: Austin Nichols, Memphis. Tough one. In the Year of the Freshman nationally, no frosh really stood out this year in the American. Nichols was  the top rookie scorer (9.5 per game) and led the entire league in field goal percentage (63.9), so he’s my pick. Brimah deserves some consideration, and listening toRick Pitino talk, he may have his vote.

Defensive Player of the Year: Justin Jackson, Cincinnati. When you lead the league in blocked shots, you’ve got the inside track on the award. When you’re also third in steals, that’s a rare combo, and you’ve pretty much sealed the deal. Amida Brimah may win this someday, but this year, it’s Jackson.

Sixth Man Award: Michael Dixon, Jr., Memphis: Missouri transfer with a controversial past wound up the Tigers’ second-leading scorer in league play (13.3 ppg). Niels Giffey deserves a glance, but Dixon is the clear-cut winner.

Most Improved Player: Dalton Pepper, Temple. Averaged 2.9 points per game off the bench in the A-10 a year ago. This year, finished third in the AAC in scoring at 18.3 ppg. 

Kevin Ollie minced no words after UConn's ugly, 81-48 loss at Louisville on Saturday -- the Huskies' worst loss in 22 years.

Fortunately for UConn, it doesn't have to worry about Louisville in the future, as the Cards are off to the ACC next year. Without question, Louisville is a horrible matchup for the Huskies and has been for a few years now.

Some more of what Ollie and UConn players had to say:

(is Louisville an elite team?)

“I don’t know if we’re elite, so how can you tell? How we played, I don’t know. But they’re a good team.”

(on lack of effort)

“When we’ve got (Montrezl) Harrell dunking backwards, hanging on the rim. We’ve got Hancock shooting open 3’s. Yeah, lack of effort. Lack of effort.”

(can Huskies bounce back?)

“I don’t know. I’m gonna look at the tape. We’ve been playing good basketball. We’ve got faith in ourselves. We’re at the bottom right now. That’s the worst we can ever play. But guess what? Just as bad as we played, we can turn it around. I’m not giving up on the season. But at this right moment, we didn’t play together. But I told them, if we play like this, we’ve got two games (left) and everybody can go to spring break.”

RYAN BOATRIGHT:

“It’s one of those games, man. It was just an ugly game from the start. We didn’t play well in any aspects of the game, from me to Bazz to the walk-ons. It was just a long night, man.”

“I don’t feel like it’s a bad matchup. I just feel like they come out and they’re the aggressor, they punch us in the mouth from the beginning, and we’re always trying to fight back. We’re always trying to fight uphill instead of getting them first and going downhill. We’ve just got to get back to the basics. We’re not rebounding, me and Bazz shot the ball terribly, we had 12 turnovers between the two of us. I can’t speak for Bazz, but I’m gonna speak up for myself and take that one to the chin, because we could have played a lot better.”

“We’re on the same page, it’s just a bad night, man. Terrible shooting night. Me and Bazz shot the ball terribly, we missed a lot of free throws. We’ve just got to figure out how to match up with ‘Trez. He’s a problem down low. We’ve got to learn from this.”

DeANDRE DANIELS:

“From the beginning, they punched us in the face and we didn’t punch back. They outplayed us, outhustled us. Once again, we couldn’t make shots. We needed to get stops on defense, and we didn’t do that tonight.”

(on whether the Huskies are on the same page?)

“It’s over with. We’ve just got to keep moving forward. We’ve got two games left, basically. We’ve got to come back in practice and bounce back, forget about this game and just keep moving forward and get ready for the conference tournament.”

(on Montrezl Harrell, who finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and six dunks -- including one backwards dunk and a powerful putback slam)

“I felt like we gave him some easy rebounds. He also had a lot of easy fast-break dunks. I feel like it’s all five, we’ve all got to box him out and rebound.”

SHABAZZ NAPIER:

“We just didn’t keep our composure. It resulted in us being embarrassed out there.”

(everyone on the same page?)

“We’re just not making shots. That’s going to affect us on the defensive end. We don’t make shots, Louisville gets the ball in transition, they’re hard to stop.”

“They played zone, that’s basically it. They’re not playing us man for a reason. They continue to play us zone, because we’re not scoring the ball against it.”

“It’s a tough matchup because they play zone. That’s the biggest thing, we always have trouble playing (teams) that play zone. And they understand that. Connecticut’s guard-oriented, and if you can stop the guards and make the forwards and centers be the reason why you lost, you’re going to have an easier battle with (us). It’s just the zone, that’s the biggest thing.”

(on Harrell)

“He’s a man. Him and Van Treese played like men today.”

“I got a couple of scratches on my arm. Refs just don’t believe you get fouled. I mean, it’s a part of the game. Sometimes the calls go your way, sometimes they don’t.”

“We’ve just got to learn from it. It sucks, but you’ve got to learn from it. You’ve got to watch tape. It sucks, but you’ve got to learn from every mistake you made. Right now, it’s a two-game season. If you lose, you’re out.”

We’re pretty much at the halfway point of the American Athletic Conference schedule, so why not hand out some mid-season AAC awards? The conference will essentially hand out the same hardware the Big East used to dole out, though with only 10 teams, there will just be first and second all-league teams (no third team), along with a few honorable mention selections.

Here we go (and remember, all references to statistical categories are for conference games only):

FIRST TEAM

Shabazz Napier, UConn: See also: Year, Player of the.

Russ Smith, Louisville: Still terrific, still a Husky-killer, still equally capable of winning or losing a game all by himself.

Montrezl Harrell, Louisville: League’s leading rebounder and perhaps most physically intimidating player.

Sean Kilpatrick, Cincinnati: Best player on league’s best team.

Justin Jackson, Cincinnati: Best defensive player on league’s best defensive team.

Joe Jackson, Memphis: May not even be best player on his team or best Jackson in the league, but a preseason first-teamer who’ll probably end up there, as well.

SECOND TEAM

DeAndre Daniels, UConn: Napier himself calls Daniels UConn's best player. Huskies sure hope his high ankle sprain heals quickly.

Shaq Goodwin, Memphis: Physically imposing (6-9, 245 lbs.) player who may merit first-team status.

TaShawn Thomas, Houston: Thursday night’s clunker vs. UConn was first time he hasn’t hit double figures this season.

Nic Moore, SMU: Best player on floor (20 points, six assists) in ‘Stangs win over UConn on Jan. 4.

Isaiah Sykes, UCF: Only player in AAC among league leaders in scoring (18.1 ppg) and rebounding (8.6).

HONORABLE MENTION

Markus Kennedy, SMU

Kadeem Jack, Rutgers

Victor Rudd, USF

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Shabazz Napier, UConn. Russ Smith was the preseason pick, but this is a virtual no-brainer. Napier leads the Huskies in scoring, assists, steals and rebounds (!) and has certainly been more valuable to his team than any other player in the nation. And no one is more clutch, a trait he's had since high school. He’s a strong national player of the year candidate, too, though it’s hard to see him beating out Creighton’s Doug McDermott at this point.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Danrad Knowles, Houston. One interesting thing about the America is that it is dominated by upperclassmen. The conference’s top five scorers are all seniors and eight of its top 10 scorers are juniors or seniors. In fact, Knowles (9.4 ppg) and Louisville’s Terry Rozier (9.1) are the only two frosh among the league’s top 30 scorers (27^th and 30^th, respectively). Of course, it’s not all about scoring, which is why UConn’s Amida Brimah, USF’s John Egbunu and Chris Perry and SMU’s Ben Moore are all still very much in the running for this award. But as of now, Knowles (who also averages 6.3 rebounds and 2.1 blocks) is probably the most complete package.

COACH OF THE YEAR: Mick Cronin, Cincinnati. In his seven seasons in the Big East, Cronin never won this award. But he’s got the Bearcats, picked to finish fourth in the preseason coaches’ poll, undefeated and all alone at the top of the AAC standings. There’s recently been some talk of national coach of the year consideration, too, though that seems a bit lofty, in my mind. (Larry Brown is a distant second right now).

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Justin Jackson, Cincinnati. This award usually goes to a player who either leads the league in blocked shots or steals, so consider this: Jackson leads the AAC in blocks (3.6) and is third in steals (2.1). Impressive. Amida Brimah may win this award for years to come, but not this season.

SIXTH MAN AWARD: Michael Dixon, Jr., Memphis. This is a tough one, especially considering there are a lot of players in the league who have started at times and come off the bench at others, sort of clouding the definition of sixth man. UConn’s Niels Giffey merits consideration, no doubt, but we’ll go with Dixon, who’s averaging 11.4 points primarily off the Tigers’ bench.

STUDENT-ATHLETE AWARD: Tim Abromaitis, Notre Dame. Sorry, just kidding. Sort of force of habit. Didn’t he win this award, like, six years in a row in the Big East? Anyway, your guess is as good as mine for this award. It’s too bad walk-ons aren’t eligible, though, or UConn’s Pat Lenehan might bethe runaway winner.

SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD: I’m sure there are many deserving candidates for this award, but I don’t know all the players around the league well enough to narrow it down. I'm open to any suggestions.

UConn has been picked to finish second in the inaugural American Athletic Conference preseason coaches’ poll, while Shabazz Napier is a first-team all-conference selection.

The Huskies are picked to finish second behind defending national champion Louisville, which garnered nine of the 10 first-place votes. Coaches can’t pick their own team, so it’s obvious Rick Pitino picked the Huskies for first.

Napier earns preseason first-team honors while Ryan Boatright earned second-team status. DeAndre Daniels did not receive any preseason recognition.

Louisville’s Russ Smith is preseason player of the year, while SMU’s Keith Frazier was tabbed the new league’s top rookie.

The coaches poll looked like this:

 

1. Louisville (9)

2. UConn (2)

3. Memphis

4. Cincinnati

5. Temple

6. SMU

7. Houston

8. South Florida

9. Central Florida

10. Rutgers

 

First team all-conference is:

 

Russ Smith, Louisville

Shabazz Napier, UConn

Chane Behanan, Louisville

Joe Jackson, Memphis

Sean Kilpatrick, Cincinnati

 

 Second team is:

 

Ryan Boatright, UConn

Montrezl Harrell, Louisville

TaShawn Thomas, Houston

Isaiah Sykes, Central Florida

Anthony Collins, South Florida

Victor Rudd, South Florida

 

Louisville’s Montrezl Harrell, Houston’s TaShawn Thomas, UCF’s Isaiah Sykes and USF’s Anthony Collins and Victor Rudd.