Philadelphia — The American Athletic Conference preseason coaches poll barely registers on their radar.

UConn men's coach Dan Hurley and women's coach Geno Auriemma view the projections the same way.

By the way, the Huskies were selected to finish fifth in the men's basketball poll while the women's program occupied their usual top spot.

"I don't look at any of that stuff," Hurley said at the annual AAC media day. "We'll be ready to play when the ball goes up. We're just so focused right now on getting better on the court with our team, continuing to build the program that way, our recruiting efforts.

"You're just so busy in the first 18 to 24 months of taking over and rebuilding a program that things like that, articles, rankings, polls, you're like oblivious."

Taking over a program coming off two consecutive losing seasons, Hurley has much bigger concerns than his team's preseason conference ranking.

In the previous five years of the league's existence, UConn has never finished higher than the preseason projection and never been chosen lower than fifth.

Central Florida is the preseason pick to win the league, earning six first place votes. Cincinnati (three votes), Houston (two) and Memphis (one) round out the top four. UConn senior Jalen Adams is the only unanimous selection of the AAC first team. UCF guard B.J. Taylor is the preseason player of the year and Houston guard Nate Hinton preseason freshman of the year.

Hurley sees a scenario where his Huskies can exceed expectations.

"From watching all the conference games we played last year, I have a pretty good feel for a lot of the teams," Hurley said. "It does seem like there could be a lot of movement, which is another reason why you probably want to throw those things out.

"If Jalen Adams shows up as one of the best guards in the country, if Alterique Gilbert is able to knock all that rust off, if Tarin (Smith) and Christian Vital and Brendan Adams are able to form one of the best guard groups in terms of depth and play, we may be able to be better than (fifth).

"There's a lot of ifs. Which coach, which team is going to get the most out of their guys."

Expectations never change for the UConn women. The Huskies have never lost a conference game and won the AAC tournament championship in all five seasons of the league's existence.

"That's nuts," Auriemma said of the AAC regular season unbeaten streak. "That's not normal. Our seniors have never lost a regular season game — conference or non-conference. They live a world that by any stretch of the imagination, is a fairy tale. It's just the most ridiculous thing."

That's not expected to change this season. The Huskies received 11 first-place votes while South Florida had one vote.

If Auriemma had his way, the Huskies wouldn't be the favorite every season.

"I don't want to lose, but there's a part of me that's like, enough of this preseason No. 1, favorite to win this," Auriemma said. "After a while, you get numb to all that. Obviously, there's a lot of respect for our program and people know that we're going to be really good.

"Every once in a while I'd like to just have our kids look at something and get pissed off about something. But that doesn't happen."

Senior Katie Lou Samuelson was named the AAC preseason player of the year. Teammates Napheesa Collier and Crystal Dangerfield also made the first team.

g.keefe@theday.com