The 2026 season is more than halfway home. Here’s where things sit in the American Conference Basketball standings with roughly half the league games in the books.
It’s not the usual suspects at the top of the American Conference Basketball standings the midpoint of conference play. Charlotte, picked preseason to finish last in the league, sits near the top with Tulsa, picked to finish eighth. South Florida is in the mix, too. That, plus a more mortal version of Memphis have made for a wide-open race in the league this season.
The Standings
Early Player of the Year pick
He doesn’t play for the best team, but it might be too hard to ignore the season that East Carolina’s Jordan Riley is having thus far. He leads the league with 22.9 points scored per game and is Top 12 with 5.6 rebounds per contest. And he’s coming off a 37-point and a 35-point game in the past two weeks.
Panic buttons
Memphis will perpetually be one of the most resourced teams for as long as the Tigers remain in the American Conference, yet the results on the court have been underwhelming of late, particularly in conference play. From frontrunner to middle of the pack, the poor results have amped up the pressure on head coach Penny Hardaway.
February game to watch
Could Tulsa and Charlotte really be playing for first place in the conference tournament when they meet in Tulsa on February 18? The Golden Hurricane took the first game in Charlotte on January 14, 86-74, and could clinch a potential tiebreaker if they can sweep the season series against the league’s other surprise contender.
Bracketology
The American Conference Basketball contingent in March is projected to consist of just one team in the the latest Bracketology. Joe Lunardi has current frontrunner Tulsa as a 12-seed in the Midwest region, squaring off against Virginia in the first round. Whether it’s Tulsa or someone else, the odds off the American being anything more than a single-bid, double-digit seed seems decidedly unlikely at this juncture.