all teams in the american qualified for the tournament. teams were seeded based on conference record and then a tie breaker system was used. teams seeded 7–10 had to play in the opening round and teams seeded 1–6 received a bye to the second round. louisville and cincinnati finished with identical 15-3 records and shared the regular season title. since the cardinals and bearcats had split their meetings during the regular season, a coin toss was held to determine the #1 seed in the tournament, which was won by cincinnati.