City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The American Athletic Conference has released its schedule pairings for the 2016-17 season, as well as the dates for its 2017 conference championship tournament.

Each team in the 11-member league will play eight teams both at home and away, with only one game against the remaining two teams -- one at home and one on the road.

Temple's only single-game opponents are two of the top five teams in the AAC from this past season. The Owls (21-12, 14-4) will not get a chance to host Houston (22-10, 12-6), but will not have to take a trip to Tulsa (20-12, 12-6).

The league's tournament will be held Thursday-Sunday, March 9-12, at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn. All 11 teams will take part, beginning with seeds 6-11 playing in the first round on Thursday, the top five seeds joining those three winners for the quarterfinals on Friday and so on until the championship on Sunday.

The tournament returns to the XL Center after spending last season at the Amway Center in Orlando.

Last year, Temple took home the AAC's regular-season championship, falling to UConn in the AAC semifinals. The Owls received an at-large selection to the NCAA tournament as a No. 10 seed, losing to Iowa 72-70 in OT in the first round.

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