The 2015-16 American Athletic Conference men’s basketball preseason coaches’ poll came out Tuesday and found Tulane sitting decidedly at the bottom of the list. Receiving just 11 points, all but one of the head coaches in the American Athletic Conference (not including Conroy, as the coaches do not vote on their own teams) picked Tulane to finish last out of the 11 teams.

The coaches picked SMU to win the AAC despite the team being barred from participating in the 2015-16 postseason and the conference tournament due to multiple NCAA violations.

Connecticut, which took the national championship in 2014 but did not make it to the NCAA tournament last season, vies for second with two first-place votes and Cincinnati sits in third place with one first-place vote.

Tulane is not a stranger to the bottom of the preseason coaches’ poll. The 2015-16 season marks Tulane’s second year of membership in the AAC, as well as the second year in a row that the Wave is anticipated to finish last in the conference.

As a brand new member entering the conference with just a 17-17 overall record from Conference USA, Tulane held No. 11 in the preseason rankings last season as well, but finished the season at No. 7 in the conference with a 15-16 overall record, 6-12 AAC. 

Despite the Wave finishing the 2014-15 season above East Carolina, Central Florida, Houston and Southern Florida, Tulane finds itself ranked below all of these teams again, a result due largely in part to the drastically different roster with which Conroy enters this season.

The Wave enters this season with a relatively unproven squad. Having lost eight players last season, the team returns just two starters in senior guard Louis Dabney and sophomore forward Dylan Osetkowski and introduces seven newcomers to the rotation. The preseason ranking just further proves that this will be an unpredictable season.