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Player of the Week

Yanick Moreira, Southern Methodist

The Mustangs continue to right the ship this season with a pair of victories over teams in the top 70 of both the RPI and Ken Pomeroy’s rankings.  And at the forefront of these victories over Wyoming and UCSB, the best of SMU’s young season, was senior center Yanick Moreira.  He shot 5/6 (83%) for 15 points in each game for a pair of similar stat lines, and averaged 9 rebounds and 2 blocks per game. In the absence of Markus Kennedy (suspended through December), Moreira has doubled his junior scoring output from 6.0 PPG to 12.4 PPG and is shooting 62% from the field.  He’s one of the conference’s better rim protectors, and at 6’11”, few teams in the AAC have players big enough and skilled enough to match up with Moreira.

Morera is best known for his huge performance over the summer for the Angola National team, putting up 38 points and 15 rebounds in a senior men’s competition, the FIBA World Cup, against Australia.

After early losses to Indiana, Gonzaga, and Arkansas, all respectable opponents, the Mustangs have won four straight and have a chance to get a signature win on the road against a vulnerable Michigan team in nine days.  They were my preseason pick to win the conference, and after the struggles of UConn and Memphis, and the emergence of Moreira as an offensive threat, Larry Brown’s team is still my pick to win it.

Who’s Hot

Shaq Goodwin, Memphis

This Memphis team has gotten off to a rough start this season, absolutely blowing chances to get good non-conference wins in blowout losses to Wichita St. and Baylor, and then dropping an ugly game to Stephen F. Austin. The one constant for them of late has been the solid play of the junior forward Shaq Goodwin. The most experienced player on a young team, much of the scoring load was expected to fall on Goodwin’s shoulders this season.  With Austin Nichols, the sophomore forward and Goodwin’s partner in crime down low, struggling with his shot this season, Goodwin has had to play above and beyond himself to keep the Tigers competitive. He scored a total of 6(!) points against Baylor and Wichita St., which was absolutely short of what they needed out of him in those games, but since the Baylor game, Goodwin has averaged 16.3 PPG on 64% shooting, along with 8.7 RPG and 10.3 free throw attempts per game in that 3-game span.

Are the Memphis Tigers where they wanted to be at this point in the season? No. 4 or 5 wins are about how many they probably expected to have by now.  But has their big man established himself as one of the premier bigs (and players) in the AAC?  I would have to say so. Six games in, he’s averaging 11.8 PPG and 7.0 RPG, along with 1.3 BPG and a 59% hit rate from the field.  He may not have the size to be a factor in the NBA, but he’s making his voice heard on the college level.

Jay Hook, Tulane

Founding AAC members, take note: the newcomers are here to stay, and they brought some good players with them.  These past couple weeks, we’ve started to give preseason All-Conference selection James Woodard of Tulsa the recognition he deserves.  But here we are in December, and the Tulane Green Wave sits at 7-1 thanks, in part, to senior guard Jay Hook.  Tulane’s three-headed monster of 13+ PPG scorers all returned from last year, and Hook was one of them.  However, though he was the complementary off-guard to Louis Dabney and Johnathan Stark last season and didn’t score as much as they did, he has taken the lead this year and scored in double figures in each of Tulane’s seven straight wins.

After the Green Wave came out flat and lost their opener to Wake Forest by 22, they turned things around and ran off seven straight victories, the latest of which was a great win over Mississippi St., their first over a power conference opponent.  Jay Hook is deadly as ever from downtown, shooting 44% on a high volume of three’s, and poured in another 17 points on 6/9 shooting against Mississippi St.  He’s definitely one of the conference’s best shooters.

Who’s Not

Ryan Boatright, UConn

It had to have been déjà vu for Boatright as he saw his team sunk by a late three-pointer against Yale this week.  Seconds before, Boatright missed the front end of a one-and-one that would’ve put the Huskies up one with a chance to seal the game with a second made free throw.  Now, five days before, Boatright was at the line for a second free throw against #7 Texas.  He had hit the first to put the Huskies up two.  He missed the second, the Longhorns took a three instead of a two, hit it, and won the game. Six days, two games, two missed free throws by Boatright, and two gutsy three-pointers, and the Huskies are sitting at 3-3 instead of 5-1 with a win over a top 10 team and no bad losses.

Now, Boatright is not solely to blame for the first two losses of UConn’s current three-game skid. He scored 17 and 24 in those games. So this designation is primarily based off of one game and a missed free throw at the end of another. But in UConn’s embarrassing downfall at the hands of Yale, Boatright shot 3/9 for 6 points, missed all four three-pointers, turned it over four times, and got to the line for only one attempt, and we all saw how that turned out, as mentioned above. Most players are entitled to off-nights, but he’s taken over the title of Heart and Soul of UConn Basketball from predecessors Shabazz and Kemba and when he struggles, there’s a very good chance his team will struggle to win, even against lesser teams like Yale.

Chris Perry, South Florida

We may be seeing a sophomore slump for Bulls big man Chris Perry.  Yes, his numbers are up all across the board, but in his last five contests, he hasn’t looked stellar, and he hasn’t been the player he was expected to be and that his team needs him to be.  In a 2-3 stretch for USF, Perry has averaged 8.8 PPG, down from his 19 PPG average in his first three games, and he’s shot 17/42 (40%) in those games, not an ideal number for a key big man.  USF had chances to score wins over three fair-to-middling teams in Alabama, NC State, and Detroit, but they couldn’t finish off any of those teams.  Chris Perry is still developing but they need him to get back in the ballpark of the 18-21 point performances he was posting to start the year if they’re going to be successful.

Top 5 Shooters

There’s a slew of good shooters in the AAC thus far, with the top 14 qualified three-point shooters all shooting 40% or better.  I’ve narrowed the list down to five, but with so many newcomers to the conference and so many unknowns this early in the season, several guys could be the best in the conference on any given night.

1. Nic Moore, Southern Methodist

Moore picked up right where he left off last season.  After shooting 44% from downtown as a sophomore, the speedy point guard is supplementing his penetrating ability with a 47% 3-point average this season, good for second in the conference.

2. Jay Hook, Tulane

We’ve mentioned him already, and it’s his outside shooting that is giving Jay Hook the success he’s had this season.  After leading the C-USA in 3-point percentage last year, he’s shooting them at a 44% clip this season, good for sixth in the AAC., and has more attempts than the five players ahead of him.

3. James Woodard, Tulsa

Woodard has played well all across the board this season, but his outside shooting has been superb.  He’s currently second in the conference in made 3-pointers per game and is hitting at a 41% rate, despite being the focus of his opponents’ defensive gameplans.

4. Avery Woodson, Memphis

After the Tigers lost their quartet of talented senior guards, there were some big question marks on the perimeter.  There still are.  But one thing is certain: Avery Woodson can shoot.  He’s making 2.3 three’s per game (6th in the AAC) at a rate of 47% (3rd in the AAC) and has given the Tigers something resembling a complementary outside punch to support Goodwin and Nichols down low.

5. Adonys Henriquez, UCF

Finally, we see a surprise freshman sneak onto the list.  His team isn’t off to a spectacular start, but Henriquez has stepped in and shot the ball with the poise of an upperclassmen.  He’s connecting at a rate of 45%, good for 5th in the AAC, and has often looked like the best offensive threat for the Knights.  He’s got a bright future ahead of him, and I don’t think his shooting is going to trail off any time soon.