American Conference Midseason Report

Midseason Player of the Year

Ryan Boatright, Connecticut

His team has struggled early, starting just 6-5, losing to Yale, and earning no quality wins, but it’s still hard to give this recognition to anyone but Boatright.  With 19.2 points per game, he’s the conference scoring leader by a wide margin, and he also leads in steals and ranks top 10 in assists, free throw percentage, and assist-to-turnover ratio.  He’s lived up to the preseason hype and if he continues this play, the substantial wins should start to roll in, possibly even National Player of the Year consideration.

Surprises

Temple

The Owls struggled mightily last season, going 9-22 after earning a 9 seed in the tournament the year prior.  The graduation of leading scorer Dalton Pepper didn’t make the picture look any less bleak.  But the one-two punch of Will Cummings and Quentin DeCosey keeps scoring, to the tune of a combined 27.9 PPG.  The start was a little shaky, as the Owls began the year 6-4 with tough losses to UNLV and St. Joes, but then UMass transfer Jesse Morgan received eligibility, and Temple became a whole new team.  They pounded Kansas and, nine days later, opened conference play with a win over a UConn team that lost Ryan Boatright to injury early in the contest.  Four losses on their resume isn’t great, but none of them are too bad, and a strong conference showing could have the Owls (voted to finish sixth in the conference preseason) as a surprise tournament selection.  With the way this team has played, I could see a 14-4 conference record as a possibility, though something like 11-7 or 10-8 is probably more likely.  In a year where UConn and SMU and certainly Memphis have been underwhelming, Temple could step up and take control of the AAC.

Shaquille Harrison, Tulsa

Last season, guard Shaquille Harrison averaged a modest 9.6 PPG and played a secondary scoring role to James Woodard, the star of that Golden Hurricanes team who was named to the preseason All-Conference squad.  And after scoring in single digits in 5 of his first 6 games this season, it looked like he would play a similar role this season.  But then something must have clicked.  He scored 17 in each of his next two and then began a streak of 5 straight games of 21+ points.  And what’s even more impressive is how efficient he’s been.  In that seven-game stretch, his shooting percentages have been 60%, 56%, 42%, 46%, 67%, 67%, and 69%.  That’s a seven-game stretch of shooting percentages that would make even an All-American center envious.  Harrison has climbed to 4th in the conference in scoring and, if he continues this kind of play, could challenge Ryan Boatright for the top spot.  Regardless, the one-two punch of Harrison and Woodard has the Golden Hurricanes trending upward for conference play.

Octavius Ellis, Cincinnati

I’ve already profiled Ellis’ journey from UC to junior college and back to UC so I won’t get into too much detail on that, but he’s been a real steadying presence for the Bearcats this year.  Without Justin Jackson locking down the paint this season, Ellis’ production has been vital for Mick Cronin’s system.  His 7.3 RPG, 2.6 BPG, and 61% FG percentage rank among the best in the conference.  He’s among the most consistent big men in the conference and is probably the closest thing this team has to a star.

Disappointments

Justin McBride, Central Florida

We’ve seen flashes from Justin McBride.  13 against UConn and USF as a freshman last year.  His first double-double against Tulsa and 31 against Bethune-Cookman this season.  But he can’t put it all together and take over a game on a regular basis.  A big part of that is, obviously, his conditioning.  He averages a mere 13 minutes a game because he’s a 325 lb. guy who can’t get up and down the court for several minutes at a time.  His size is both a weapon and a weakness for him.  He also lacks consistency on the offensive end when he is in the game.  With how little he can be on the floor at a time, it’s hard for him to get in the flow of the game.  Central Florida has lost some games it had no business losing this season.  If they’re going to make a decent showing in conference play, this freshman-dependent squad needs fuller contributions from McBride.

Houston’s Offense

The numbers don’t lie.  39% from the field (324th out of 351 DI schools).  15 turnovers per game (313th).  Two losses to sub-325 KenPom.com teams.  The weaknesses of this fairly talented Houston squad are glaring.  They rely on Jherrod Stiggers, who I will admit is slightly less of a chucker this season, for the biggest chunk of their scoring.  He shoots 39%.  Their two key big men, Devonta Pollard and Danrad Knowles shoot a measly 43% each.  And the other four key guys in their perimeter rotation, L.J. Rose, Eric Weary Jr., Cavon Baker, and LeRon Barnes shoot 36%, 42%, 33%, and 36%, respectively.  And four of those seven guys take more three’s than two’s.  The high volume of threes is the main reason why this team still manages to put up a decent number of points every game.  From what I’ve seen of them, they definitely need to work on their offensive discipline and eliminate mental mistakes.  There’s just too much streetball going on with this squad, and their style of winning won’t hold up against better teams most of the time.

Top 5 Non-Conference Wins

1.Temple 77 – #10 Kansas 52

This is perhaps THE upset of the college basketball non-conference season, thanks to the quality of the favorite and the magnitude of the beatdown Temple gave them.  This win was a sort of coming-out party for Temple.  It was the second game for recently-instated transfers Jesse Morgan and Devin Coleman, and the first big win for a Temple team that had had a solid though unspectacular season to that point after last year’s 9-22 nightmare.

2.Cincinnati 71 – #19 San Diego St. 62, OT

There was some uncertainty as to how Cincinnati would fare this year following the graduation of Justin Jackson, Titus Rubles, and of course, conference scoring champion Sean Kilpatrick.  But Mick Cronin found some new players who fit in with his physical, low-scoring brand of basketball, and they have themselves in a pretty good position.  When SDSU came to town, the Bearcats were four days removed from a tough double-overtime loss to Nebraska, but they quickly righted the ship with a rare AAC win over a ranked team.  They ended up coming out flat in their next game against VCU, but it was a big resume-building December win that could prove crucial for Cincinnati in March.

3.Southern Methodist 62 – Michigan 51

By now, we’ve all heard how atrocious Michigan has been this season and how they’ve gotten beat up by teams that are supposedly nowhere near their caliber.  But they still have massively talented players like Caris LeVert and Zak Irvin and a great coach in John Beilein, and beating them on their home floor is no easy feat.  But in Markus Kennedy’s first game back from suspension, the Mustangs got the crown jewel of their seven-game winning streak to close out the non-conference schedule.

4.Cincinnati 76 – NC St. 60

Here’s another good true road win, and a second quality victory for Cincinnati.  Cincinnati just ran away with this one and showed how good they can be.  They shot over 50% as a team and didn’t allow a single made three-pointer, and that’s the kind of efficiency that could make them the surprise frontrunner in the conference.

5.UConn 75 – Dayton 64

It hasn’t been a stellar non-conference season for Connecticut.  They didn’t win all the games they were supposed to win, and they lost all the games they would’ve really liked to win.  But a neutral-site victory over Dayton is a solid one.  The Flyers have a plethora of decent wins, so the win over the Atlantic 10 team is actually pretty beneficial for the Huskies.

Top 5 Worst Non-Conference Losses

1.Southeast Oklahoma St. 69 – Tulsa 66

Of all the non-conference losses, this one is truly the most inexplicable.  The Division II Savage Storm, with a 5-6 record on the season, took down Tulsa, who was looking like one of the more consistent team s in the conference.  And what’s worse is that Tulsa was behind 62-46 with 3:35 remaining and it took a furious 20-7 run for Tulsa to make the score look respectable.  This loss may have killed Tulsa’s tournament hopes, but they’re currently on a two-game win streak heading into conference play.

2.Arkansas-Pine Bluff 62 – Houston 56, OT

Arkansas-Pine Bluff is currently ranked 329th in KenPom.com’s rankings and has lost by 33 to Michigan State, by 32 to Air Force, by 35 to Stanford, by 28 to Hawaii, and by 32 to Central Michigan.  But when the Cougars shot 34%, turned the ball over 26 times, and gave up 33 points to ARPB guard Marcel Mosley, things weren’t bound to turn out well.  The Cougars trailed by 16 at one point, came back, but couldn’t prevail, at home, in overtime.

3.South Carolina St. 71 – Houston 63

And three days after Houston dropped the Arkansas-Pine Bluff game, they fell in regulation to the 337th-KenPom.com-ranked team.  The 8-point victory for SC St. was their largest margin of victory this year, even larger than their 5-point victory over winless Florida A&M.  Obviously, Houston can be very bad or pretty good, as they were in away-from-home wins over Texas Tech and Murray State.  They’re a streak-shooting team led by a streak-shooter in Jherrod Stiggers and until they develop more consistency on both sides of the ball, they’ll be liable to lose to anyone on any given night in conference play.

4.Illinois-Chicago 71 – Central Florida 60

On December 11th, UCF traveled from sunny Florida to play in Chicago against 2-7 Illinois-Chicago, and they dropped the ball.  To this point, UIC only has one other win over a Division I team.  UCF currently sits at the bottom of all AAC teams in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, but they should improve.  With a team as young as theirs, losses like this one are to be expected.

5.Yale 55 – UConn 54

Yale is actually far from one of the worst five teams to beat an AAC squad, but UConn looked like the prohibitive favorite to win the conference after two weeks of play and when they followed up their first loss to West Virginia with this upset at the hands of Yale, the conference race looked a lot more wide open.

Midseason All-Conference

First Team

Yanick Moreira, Southern Methodist
James Woodard, Tulsa
Shaquille Harrison, Tulsa
Ryan Boatright, Connecticut
Nic Moore, Southern Methodist

Second Team

Octavius Ellis, Cincinnati
Devonta Pollard, Houston
Quenton DeCosey, Temple
Corey Allen, South Florida
Will Cummings, Temple

Power Rankings

1. Southern Methodist
2. Connecticut
3. Temple
4. Memphis
5. Cincinnati
6. Tulsa
7. Tulane
8. Central Florida
9. Houston
10. East Carolina
11. South Florida