2017 American Athletic Conference Tournament Thread

[sadderbudweiser]

Good-I still want UCONN to have to play 4 games to win it at home no matter how bad they are playing right now

What I will be interested to see is the dropoff in attendance when they go down. I'm anticipating a half full XL for Saturday and Sunday. I'd love to be wrong.

[ojaipony]

Teams least wanting to face before finals:

- Temple
- Houston
- UConn

Hope to play: ECU and UCF.

[Grant Carter]

Teams least wanting to face before finals:

- Temple
- Houston
- UConn

Hope to play: ECU and UCF.

Why would you rather play UCF than Memphis?

[LA_Mustang]

No joke. UCF is a much tougher matchup than Memphis.

[Pony ^]

Teams least wanting to face before finals:

- Temple
- Houston
- UConn

Hope to play: ECU and UCF.

You do know UCF just beat Cincy right?

[ojaipony]

Teams least wanting to face before finals:

- Temple
- Houston
- UConn

Hope to play: ECU and UCF.

You do know UCF just beat Cincy right?

I just don't fear UCF. I look at athletes and coaching in tournament settings most and UCF just doesn't really worry me all that much (Dawkins is overrated as a coach and Tacko will wear out in a tourney over time, but maybe they should and I'm very wrong). Of course, you can add Memphis to the list of not worried about, although they are much better than what we saw at Moody Saturday. We weren't losing to ANYBODY that day!

[PonyTime]

We want to beat the best possible teams on the way to the Championship - right? Assume that would be UCF and not Memphis.

Why am I more worried about Temple than any other team on our side of the Bracket?

[Stallion]

What UCF does is disrupt the status quo-wouldn't be a good day to go cold from the 3 point line like Cincy did

[SMU Section F]

Why am I more worried about Temple than any other team on our side of the Bracket?

Because it's high risk/low reward for us given their terrible season and the early round matchup, plus Dunphy is a better coach than he gets credit for and they do have some solid athletes.

[PonySnob]

Predictions for 1st & 2nd Round Games (per KenPom on 3/6)

UCF defeats Memphis (65-64; 55% win probability)
UCONN defeats USF (72-57; 92%)
Tulsa defeats Tulane (78-73; 70%)
Temple defeats ECU (67-62; 68%)

Tulane didn't seem have too much of an issue with Tulsa on Sunday

[birddogger]

Predictions for 1st & 2nd Round Games (per KenPom on 3/6)

UCF defeats Memphis (65-64; 55% win probability)
UCONN defeats USF (72-57; 92%)
Tulsa defeats Tulane (78-73; 70%)
Temple defeats ECU (67-62; 68%)

Tulane didn't seem have too much of an issue with Tulsa on Sunday

I agree that Tulane has improved a lot, but they are a consistently bad road team. Tulsa not as bad.

Which got me to thinking, how does each AAC team do away from home? I compiled the road/neutral records for each:

Road/ Neutral/ Combined Non-Home

SMU 8-3/ 1-1/ 9-4
Cincinnati 8-3/ 1-1/ 9-4
Houston 6-5/ 3-0/ 9-5
UCF 6-6/ 1-1/ 7-7
Memphis 4-7/ 1-1/ 5-8
UCONN 4-8/ 1-2/ 5-10
Tulsa 3-9/ 1-2/ 4-11
Temple 4-8/ 3-0/ 7-8
ECU 1-11/ 1-1/ 2-12
Tulane 2-10/ 0-3/ 2-13
USF 1-11/ 0-0/ 1-11

The non-home records correspond strongly to each team's respective seed, with the exception of Temple, which has the 5th best non-home record but is the 8th seed. UCONN is effectively playing a home game, of course, so not sure how relevant this as a predictor of its chances.

We are 9-1 in road games, post-Aussies, so this bodes well for us as a predictor.

Based on non-home record alone, I would expect the probability of winning the tournament, from highest to lowest, to be as follows:

SMU
Cinn
Hou
UCONN
UCF
Temple
Memphis
Tulsa
ECU
Tulane
USF

This and $4.50 will get you any variety of overpriced grande coffee of your choice.

[Harry0569]

KenPom will be posting his AAC projections later this evening / first thing in the morning. Will post when it becomes available.

[sadderbudweiser]

What sticks out there?

Houston and Temple are 3-0 on neutral courts.

[Dukie]

What sticks out there?

Houston and Temple are 3-0 on neutral courts.

Yes, and generally against quality opponents (Temple especially). But 5 of those 6 games were in November and the last was December 10.

[indianmustang]

We need more than 2 teams in ncaa