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The American Athletic Conference hasn’t been a conference with many surprises during its existence. UConn dominated in the first seven years of the conference’s existence, winning all seven AAC titles and never losing a conference game during this period. In the first two seasons since UConn left for the Big East, it’s been won by South Florida and UCF, with whichever of the two didn’t win finishing second.
But we might have a new American this year. South Florida is still on top with a 7-0 conference record, but UCF is struggling, starting AAC play 1-5. That’s opened the door for a couple of surprising teams to get in the mix. Tulsa sits at 5-1 in conference play with a date against South Florida next on the schedule, while East Carolina is 5-2.
We’ll talk about South Florida and East Carolina in a little bit, but let’s start by looking at what Tulsa’s done this year, because the rise of the Golden Hurricane is a bit of a surprise. Last season, the team finished over .500 for the first time since the 2014-15 season but went 5-8 in conference play. In the history of the conference, Tulsa has just one season with a conference record above .500.
What Tulsa’s doing this season
The biggest change for Tulsa this year? The Golden Hurricane are getting buckets.
The team is averaging 74.6 points per game, its highest mark ever according to the team’s media guide. If the Golden Hurricane manage to keep this up, it would be just the second time in program history that they averaged 70 or more points per game.
One thing that’s sparked this change has been that the team is playing at its fastest pace since the 2013-14 season, but pace alone doesn’t explain everything. That season, the team finished with the same possessions per game number that it’s at now, but averaged 5.1 fewer points per game.
What helps account for this improvement is an increased reliance on three-point shooting. Tulsa’s third in the country in three-point rate, with 43.7% of its scoring attempts coming from beyond the arc. That’s up from 35.5% last season, which was still a good number, as they ranked 40th in 3-point rate that season. The logic here is that taking more shots from 3-point range raises the ceiling of what you can do, because three points is more than two points. The team only ranks 98th in 3-point field-goal percentage so there’s definitely room for improvement there, but the shot volume has helped improve an offense that up until last season had gone three years in a row averaging under 60 points per game. Credit some of this improvement to head coach Angie Nelp, who took over as head coach last year after a stint as an assistant at Arizona State. Under her guidance, Tulsa has quickly become a good offensive team, and the increased spacing seems to be opening up more lanes for the team to get to the paint and get good looks there.
The Golden Hurricane’s success from beyond the arc is largely thanks to Maya Mayberry and Delanie Crawford—Mayberry shoots 38% from deep, while Crawford is at 39%. Mayberry is in her third year with the program and was the only real bright spot on the 2020-21 team that went 5-14, while Crawford is in her second season.
One of the more curious things about the team’s success is that the leading scorer, Temira Poindexter, hasn’t shot very well from deep—she’s at 27.8% from deep on 6.6 attempts per game.
But Poindexter makes up for that in other ways. Per CBB Analytics, she shoots 77.1% at the rim, which ranks in the 93rd percentile nationally, and she’s shooting 47.8% on non-rim paint shots, which is in the 77th percentile.
Additionally, of the team’s six players to play at least 250 minutes, four of them actually have a field-goal percentage on non-rim paint attempts that ranks in the 85th percentile or better, and two of those (Crawford and Ahrray Young) also rank that high in field-goal percentage at the rim. The team’s done a good job scoring on the interior, and that coupled with the 3-point volume help illustrate how interesting this team is offensively. (Quick aside: they also just have one of the weirdest shot profiles in the country: they only take 16% of their shots at the rim, which ranks in the first percentile, but they shoot 68.7% at the rim, which ranks in the 99th percentile.)
Meanwhile, the defense has played solid. The Golden Hurricane rank 66th in the country in defensive rating and through six conference games, they’re sixth out of 11 AAC teams in that stat. The defense isn’t going to blow anyone away, but it also hasn’t been an issue. Considering they were 226th in defensive rating last season, that should be considered a win for this program.
South Florida’s still the AAC favorites
South Florida received nine of the 11 first-place votes in the American’s preseason poll, and the Bulls are currently undefeated in conference play. I think it’s more likely than not that South Florida ends up winning this conference: they rank 27th in Her Hoop Stats Rating while Tulsa ranks 90th.
While they don’t stand out as much offensively as the Golden Hurricane, the Bulls do rank in the top 50 in field-goal percentage and points per scoring attempt. Defensively, they’ve been the better team, ranking 53rd in defensive rating. I also think the defense for South Florida might be a little better than the numbers show: they played some good offensive teams in non-conference, facing Michigan, Texas, NC State, Ohio State and Arkansas, and beating Texas and Arkansas. Their Her Hoop Stats Defensive Rating supports this argument, as the Bulls rank 19th in that.
Can East Carolina make a charge for the top spot?
With how good South Florida has been and how well Tulsa is playing, I don’t really think teams like SMU, Memphis and Houston are worth talking about when discussing the top of this conference. Each team already has three losses, and the American has never been won by a team with more than two conference losses—a number that’s admittedly skewed by that whole “UConn was in the American” thing.
There is one team that’s still theoretically in play, though: East Carolina. The Pirates are 5-2 in conference play. Originally picked last in the conference’s preseason poll, ECU has used a strong defensive effort to get to 14 wins already, its most since 2018-19. The team ranks sixth in the country in defensive rating, and the team has done a good job forcing turnovers—the Pirates are second in steal rate and their opponents are second in turnover rate.
But ECU already has a loss to Tulsa on its resume, and the offensive struggles—the team is 249th in offensive rating—won’t help either. East Carolina’s a good story, but it’s likely that ends up being all this is.
Looking ahead
If the American’s going to be won by someone other than South Florida, it’ll be Tulsa. It’s not going to take long for us to know if Tulsa has a viable shot at doing so, because the two teams play tomorrow night. A Tulsa loss would put it two games back of South Florida, and the rematch in February will be in Florida.
But a Tulsa win on Wednesday suddenly throws things up in the air. Wednesday’s game airs on ESPN U at 5:00 p.m. ET, so tune in and find out if this fun Tulsa team can make a game of it and increase its chances of winning the conference.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.