AAC

The amount of change in the AAC last season was a big point of emphasis when I wrote up this conference in last year’s College Basketball Betting Guide. Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF all moved to the Big 12, while Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA all moved in from Conference USA.

We don’t have any changes for this season, as Army is a football-only member, but we do have another departure with SMU leaving for the ACC, leaving 13 teams in the conference.

 

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Interestingly, newcomers to the conference finished second, third, and fourth in 2024, as South Florida won the league at 16-2, but FAU, Charlotte, and UAB were the next three by the standings. Bart Torvik ranked the AAC as the eighth-best conference for the 2022-23 season and it dropped to 10th for the 2023-24 campaign, but it wasn’t because of the new programs.

Last year, there were five top-90 teams, so the conference wasn’t as top-heavy with a top-five Houston squad and a top-20 Memphis team, but it was deeper all around and more balanced. That looks to be the case again this season, as heavy losses at FAU are sure to set that program back, but other teams have a great chance to be on the rise.

This is a great conference to analyze and handicap because there are so many different styles of play and so many different tempos. USF won the regular season, but UAB beat the Bulls en route to the conference’s automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. Will the Blazers run it back? Will Memphis figure things out and put together a record representative of their talent level? How about North Texas after a transitional year under first-year HC Ross Hodge?

The AAC is wide open in my opinion and we should get a lot of close, competitive games during the regular season.

Charlotte 49ers

Aaron Fearne begins his second season as the bench boss for the 49ers with a lack of familiar faces. Top player Igor Milicic Jr. (13 PPG, 8.4 RPG) transferred to Tennessee. Lu’Cye Patterson led the team with 14.6 PPG and he’s now at Minnesota. Big man Dishon Jackson and wing Jackson Threadgill also transferred out. The 49ers only return one player that averaged more than 20 minutes for the squad.

Most of last year’s scoring punch is gone, as only Nik Graves had over 10 PPG and he was third on the team in minutes with nearly 30 per game. It could be a rough year for the 49ers, who had to go to the transfer portal for depth and starting-level talent on a team that ranked 356th in adjusted tempo per Torvik last season. That likely means a lot of empty trips on offense and a lot of low-scoring games.

East Carolina Pirates

East Carolina may have gotten a little bit more athletic through the transfer portal, but the Pirates have to replace Brandon Johnson (14 PPG, 8.6 RPG) and Ezra Ausar (11.4 PPG, 4.7 RPG), who ranked second and third in points and first and third in rebounds. Leading scorer RJ Felton (17.3 PPG) is back and he’ll be able to play with his younger brother, Ladontae. They’ll likely spend ample time on the floor with a couple of double-double machines from the JUCO ranks in Trevion LaBeaux and Jayshayne Woodard.

With the new conference members, ECU regressed on defense and continued to be poor on offense, finishing 231st in eFG% defense and 289th in eFG% offense. They were outside the top 270 in 3P%, 2P%, and FT%, improving slightly from beyond the arc and inside of it. ECU was 14th and 13th, respectively, in 3P% and 2P% in conference games, so unless the new faces help instantly, expect more of the same.

Florida Atlantic Owls

The magnificent, and improbable, two-year run for FAU basketball will live on forever in college basketball history. Things will look a LOT different in Boca Raton this year. John Jakus takes over for Dusty May, who is now the head coach at Michigan. The Owls have zero returning starters, so that means guys like Johnell Davis, Vladislav Goldin, Alijah Martin, and Nick Boyd are all gone.

Jakus has been under Scott Drew at Baylor since 2017 and worked under Mark Few from 2014-17 as the Director of Basketball Operations, so he’s learned from some of the game’s best head coaches. I don’t think FAU will bottom out. In fact, I think they have a great shot to win the conference. They’ve added some premier scoring punch in KyKy Tandy (18.2 PPG at Jacksonville State), Ken Evans (18.8 PPG at Jackson State), Leland Walker (15.4 PP, 4.1 APG at Eastern Kentucky) and two giant bigs from Lithuania. How quickly everybody comes together will be the key, but this team could have scorers everywhere, lots of length, and tons of athleticism.

Memphis Tigers

Overhauls are nothing new for Memphis, given that the program deals with one-and-done players on an annual basis. But, this overhaul is by design. Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway wants his team to play the hard-a-way, in that he wants them to not be as flashy and floating free. The Tigers were 339th in the nation in defensive rebounding percentage per Torvik and didn’t show nearly as much effort to get other team’s misses as they did their own.

The Tigers were a solid offensive crew, but lacked a little panache on the defensive side. The ironic thing is that Memphis actually didn’t really have one-and-dones last season. They had a bunch of tenured transfers, including Nae’Qwan Tomlin, Jaykwon Walton, Jahvon Quinerly, and David Jones. This year’s roster is also loaded with transfers, headlined by PJ Haggerty from Tulsa, who averaged over 21 PPG. Big rim protectors were imported like Tyreek Smith and Moussa Cisse. Expect a much more physical Memphis team that also projects to shoot better from the outside.

North Texas Mean Green

The Dudes of Denton were strong on the defensive end and had a top-15 3P% for first-year head coach Ross Hodge. The transition from Grant McCasland to Hodge was an easy one because he was an assistant under the now Texas Tech bench boss. Speaking of transition, the Mean Green had their fastest season by adjusted tempo since 2021…and still ranked 360th in the nation per Torvik. Like every team in the AAC, the roster turnover is extreme with one returning starter.

To fill out a lineup, Hodge went to Drake for Atin Wright, who shot almost 50% on 2s and over 81% at the stripe. North Texas was 298th in the nation in 2P%, so Wright is a very welcomed addition, but other top transfers like Latrell Joseph, Jasper Floyd, and Jonathan Massie were all below average in that department. UNT should still have some good shooters on the outside and a monster on the glass in holdover Moulaye Sissoko, but the ceiling for the season looks lower than in past years.

Rice Owls

Most of the C-USA squads looked pretty good in Year 1 in the AAC. Rice was not one of them. The Owls were plenty competent on the offensive side, but they were atrocious on defense. The rough season got Scott Pera fired and now it will be Rob Lanier’s team, as he goes from Dallas to Houston following his dismissal from SMU. Lanier actually put together a 10-win improvement for the Mustangs from 2022-23 to 2023-24, but that was apparently not good enough.

The shocking pink slip could be Rice’s gain. The Owls haven’t had a coach finish his tenure with a winning record since Don Suman from 1949-59. Mike Rhoades was the closest from 2014-17, going 47-52. Unfortunately, the cupboard is really bare for Lanier, as Mekhi Mason transferred to Washington and Max Fielder and Travis Evee ran out of eligibility. That trio combined for 40 PPG, 16.7 RPG, and 10.2 APG. Emory Lanier and Jalen Smith followed Lanier from SMU, but most of the rest of the roster is made up of small-conference transfers for what could be a very long year.

South Florida Bulls

Amir Abdur-Rahim couldn’t get the Bulls into the NCAA Tournament, as they fell to UAB in the conference tournament semis, but it was a wildly successful first season. USF went to the NIT and beat UCF before bowing out against VCU, but the team won 25 games for the first time in program history. It was actually their first postseason appearance since winning the CBI during the 2018-19 season.

Abdur-Rahim got a nice head start last year because the core of his Kennesaw State roster followed him to Tampa. He has a few new faces this season, but unlike most AAC teams, there are a lot of holdovers. Top 3-point shooter Jayden Reid is one of them and so is Kobe Knox. Those two were third and fifth in percentage of minutes played, a luxury not afforded to many teams in this conference. But, they weren’t the stars, so Abdur-Rahim needs stars to emerge or those two to take a big leap. Six-foot-11 center Jamille Reynolds shot 54% on 2s in a part-time role for Cincinnati last season and he’s a player to watch.

Temple Owls

The third and final Owls in this conference play out of Philadelphia. After starting 1-11 in conference play and 8-17 overall, the Owls won four of their final six regular season games and four games in four games to make the AAC Championship Game. They lost to UAB, but first-year head coach Adam Fisher, who coached under Jim Larranga at Miami and Mike Rhoades at Penn State, finally started pressing the right buttons.

The first step this offseason was replacing the production and high usage rates of Hysier Miller and Jahlil White. Pulling Jamal Mashburn Jr. out of New Mexico surely looks to be a good start and Saint Joseph’s transfer Lynn Greer, who started his career at Dayton, could also help. Greer was a good shooter in the A-10. Mashburn was not in the Mountain West, firing away at 38% on 2s. Given that Temple was 345th in 2P% and 289th in 3P% (338th in eFG%), you wonder if this team has enough scoring punch.

Tulane Green Wave

I wrote in last year’s CBB Guide that I felt like the infusion of talent from the Conference USA teams would be a problem for a team like Tulane. It turns out that was true. The Green Wave were knocked out of the conference tourney by one of them (North Texas) and didn’t beat any of them in the regular season. That was not the way that Ron Hunter wanted to follow up the first 20-win season in a very long time.

But, Tulane struggled badly on defense, got wrecked on the glass, and squandered a pretty good offense as a top-10 team in adjusted tempo. Hunter is back with a warmer seat and a brand-new lineup, as all five starters departed. Hunter spent the offseason looking for players familiar to him. He heavily recruited areas where he had previously coached and grabbed Michael Eley from Siena and Kam Williams from Louisiana. That said, this team still lacks depth and proven scoring talent, which seems problematic for an iffy defense wanting to play at a breakneck pace.

Tulsa Golden Hurricane

Eric Konkol is a solid coach and he made the best of what he had with Tulsa last season. The Golden Hurricane lost Keaston Willis just two games into his season after he missed the first five. Freshman PJ Haggerty and Cobe Williams, who came with Konkol from Louisiana Tech, carried the team to a 16-15 record. Unfortunately, Haggerty moved on to conference rival Memphis and Williams is out of eligibility. At least Willis will return, along with several players from last season, including Isaiah Barnes, who shot 62% on 2s.

The silver lining of Haggerty’s departure is that he was a bad 3-point shooter and that was the one primary area where Tulsa lagged behind everybody else. Willis and the holdovers getting a greater shot share should help and Dwon Odom from Georgia State can step right into Haggerty’s role. Of all the transfer classes in this conference, Tulsa’s is one of the most intriguing to me, as Konkol has a good eye for talent and led an 11-win improvement from Year 1 to Year 2.

UAB Blazers

Surely I sound like a broken record to this point, as the AAC just had an incredible amount of turnover. One team bucked the trend and will be able to boast a strong sense of continuity this season and it just so happens to be the reigning champions. UAB returns four starters, including top scorer Yaxel Lendeborg. Eric Gaines entered the draft and went unpicked, but he is the only noteworthy loss for the Blazers.

To replace him, Andy Kennedy hit the portal to get Georgia Southern’s Tyren Moore, who was a 41% 3-point shooter, and Iona wing Greg Gordon, who shot over 58% on 2s. Kennedy also got an efficient big in Bradley Ezewiro from Saint Louis, who averaged 12 PPG and 6.2 RPG while averaging just 22 minutes per game. UAB is the rightful favorite to win this conference and pretty clearly the strongest team in my mind.

UTSA Roadrunners

As I said, most of the C-USA squads found success. UTSA was one that did not. Steve Henson is out and Austin Claunch is in, as the Roadrunners look to the 34-year-old to turn things around. Claunch was named the head coach at Nicholls at just 26 years old and was there for six seasons before joining Nate Oats as an assistant at Alabama last season. Claunch’s Colonels were 90-61 on his watch.

In terms of style of play, UTSA will continue to move up and down the floor. They were in the top 100 in tempo in all but one of Henson’s seasons and the Roadrunners won’t slow down under Claunch. Nicholls and Alabama both played fast while he was there. But this team badly needs shot-makers and shot-stoppers. UTSA was 271st in eFG% offense and 257th in eFG% defense. They were also among the worst in the nation at forcing turnovers and defending 3s. Claunch does have a clean slate here with no returning starters and we’ll just have to wait and see how the team gels.

Wichita State Shockers

The metrics looked better than the record for Wichita State last season, as they were a borderline top-100 team by adjusted defensive efficiency and roughly in line with the national average on offense. First-year coach Paul Mills went 5-13 in league play, though, and the team was just 6-17 after a cupcake start to the season that saw them begin 7-1. That said, Wichita State was 4-5 vs. Quadrant 2 opponents, which was better than most of the teams in the bottom half of the AAC standings.

Mills just didn’t have the right makeup for his team, as they were 320th in Assist Rate and 311th in 3P Rate. The last three Oral Roberts teams were all top 20 in 3P Rate. So, Mills had to find some shooters in the portal and AJ McGinnis could be one after shooting 40% from 3 for Lipscomb. Zane Meeks is a career 34.4% 3-point shooter, but a very efficient scorer inside. So is Saint Peter’s transfer Corey Washington. It was a transitional year and this roster looks better equipped for Mills’ wishes on both ends of the floor.

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