If Cincinnati is looking for a model to follow in baseball, its that of the 2016 UConn Huskies, who made a surprise run to the 2016 American Athletic Conference title by winning the league’s tournament after finishing third in the conference standings at the end of the regular season.
2016 Review
After years of being stuck in mid-30 win purgatory, the Huskies finally made a run to the postseason last spring. If you want to toss some water on the fact that UConn is the defending AAC champion, you could point out they it never played a team seeded higher than it during the double-elimination tourney, but going 4-1 and winning the whole thing isn’t anything to scoff at.