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Rice Football tops AAC in returning production

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The game isn’t played on paper, but ESPN’s returning production metrics are high on Rice Football in 2024.

In his final formal media availability of the season following, Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren interjected a ray of hope after a frustrating result, a bowl game loss to Texas State. “This is a really good football team coming back,” he said, projecting hope for 2024, and hopefully beyond.

Several months later, the numbers are in. According to ESPN’s returning production estimates, Rice football returns the highest percentage of their production out of any team in the AAC in 2024.

Bill Connelly, who compiles the metric for ESPN, estimates the Owls return 81 percent of their production from the 2023 team that won six games and made a second consecutive bowl game appearance.

That number dips a bit to 73 percent on offense but skyrockets to 89 percent on defense. In fact, no team in the nation projects to return more on defense than Rice. The Owls have lost De’Braylon Carroll and Tre’shon Devones from last year’s unit, but the rest of the defensive cupboard is fully stocked.

With a stacked defense and plenty of returning pieces on offense, Rice is positioned as well as it has been in quite some time to take another step. Rice and USF are the only AAC team in the top 20, nationally in returning production. The Owls’ biggest challenge will be replacing impact players on offense — JT Daniels, Luke McCaffrey and Clay Servin. If Rice can do that, 2024 has the makings of a special season on South Main.

One other interesting tidbit… Connelly notes this on Twitter:

Here are the full numbers:

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AAC Baseball sends ECU, Tulane NCAA Tournament

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AAC Baseball will have two representatives in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, regular season champ ECU and tournament champ Wichita State.

East Carolina

East Carolina was a force throughout the 2024 AAC Baseball season, impressing in nonconference play and following it up with a top finish in the league. Injuries saw them stumble a bit down the stretch, but the Pirates have a shot to make some noise with several of those key players expected to make their return for the NCAA Tournament.

The Pirates will host their regional as the No. 1 seed. Joining them in Greenville is their first opponent, No. 4 Seed Evansville, as well as  No. 2 Seed Wake Forest and No. 3 Seed VCU.

This is ECU’s sixth time hosting at Clark-LeClair Stadium and the Pirates’ 34th  appearance in the NCAA Tournament. They’ve qualified for regional play eight times in 10 years under head coach Cliff Godwin.

The Greenville Regional is paired with the Knoxville Regional, home of No. 1 National Seed, Tennessee.

Tulane

Tulane secured automatic entrance to the NCAA Tournament field by virtue of their AAC Baseball Tournament championship, their second tournament title in as many seasons after taking home the trophy last season as well. This is Tulane’s 10th conference tournament title and their 23rd appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

The Green Wave are the No. 4 Seed in the Corvallis Regional, home of host Oregon State, the No. 15 overall seed in the tournament. Also in the field are No. 2 Seed UC-Irvine and No. 3 Seed Nicholls.

Tulane has met two of its regional members on the diamond already this year. The Green Wave were swept in New Orleans by UC Irvine and won a pair of midweek games against Nicholls earlier in the season, one at home and one on the road.

The Corvallis Regional is paired with the Lexington Regional, home of No. 2 Seed, Kentucky.

NCAA Tournament Bracket

Elsewhere in the AAC

South Florida has made a coaching change, dismissing Billy Mohl after seven seasons with the Bulls. USF was one of two teams, the other Memphis, who failed to reach the AAC Baseball Tournament, falling in their final game of the season to UAB and ending up on the wrong side of the bubble. USF is the only program to have made a coaching change at this time.

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2024 American Conference Baseball Tournament: Preview, schedule, how to watch

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The American Conference Baseball Tournament is set to begin in Clearwater, FL. Here’s how to watch and what to be looking for this week.

The final weekend of regular season play saw teams jockeying for position, but now the American Conference Baseball Tournament field is finally set. The top eight squads will square off with hopes of an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and their chance to play for a trip to the College World Series. The bottom two teams in the standings: Memphis and South Florida, will be watching from home with all six of the former C-USA additions reaching their inaugural AAC Tournament field.

All games will be streamed on ESPN+ with the exception of the tournament championship, available on ESPN News. The tournament runs from Tuesday, May 21 to Sunday, May 26. The full schedule and updated bracket are available on the American Conference Baseball Tournament website.

Assessing the field

The favorite | East Carolina has been the most complete team in this conference from start to finish. The only ranked squad, the Pirates are the clear frontrunners and boast the ability to beat teams with their arms and their bats.

The contender | UTSA didn’t finish far behind ECU in the conference standings and won the head-to-head series with the Pirates earlier this season. The Roadrunners are talented, albeit inconsistent. When they’re at their best they’re hard to beat.

The dark horse | A team with a couple of quality starters can make a run in tournament play. In this league, UAB gits the bill. Both Blazye Berry and Colin Daniel boast top five ERAs in the conference. If they start hot and make the winners bracket, UAB will have a shot.

The wild card | Tulane has the ability to bludgeon opponents with their bats. The Green Wave led the league with 80 hores and finished second in slugging percentage. If they can cut down on strikeouts and run into a few pitches, they have the tools to pull off an upset or two.

The bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Tuesday, May 21:

Game 1 – 9:00 AM | (5) UAB vs (4) Wichita State

Game 2 – approx. 12:30 PM | (1) ECU vs (8) Rice

Game 3 – 4:00 PM | (7) Charlotte vs (2) UTSA

Game 4 – approx. 7:30 PM | (6) FAU vs (3) Tulane

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AAC Baseball: Lots on the line in final weekend

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Every team is alive in the AAC Baseball conference tournament hunt and the regular season title remains up for grabs in the final weekend of the season.

SCHOOL CONF OVERALL NEXT

Notable storylines results

1. Pirates and Roadrunners and the battle for first place

Things couldn’t be much closer at the top of the conference.  UTSA has a one game leader over UTSA, but the Roadrunners took the conference series over the Pirates, giving them the tiebreaker. If ECU sweeps Rice, they take the conference crown. If they fail to win three more, that opens the door for UTSA and other possible permutations. ECU has lost four straight AAC games entering the final weekend.

2. Memphis a longshot

Memphis does have two series wins, but one of them (over Tulane) is irrelevant because of how far ahead the Green Wave are over the Tigers in the standings. The head to head over Rice might be pivotal, though, depending on how these next three games go. They have be far the most tenuous path to the postseason and would need help, most likely from Rice and USF, to advance to Clearwater.

3. Who has tiebreakers over who?

As this league has already seen in men’s and women’s basketball in recent months, tiebreakers get extremely complicated when we’ve got three or four (or even more) teams tied with identical records. From there, the tiebreaker rules stipulated best records in the tied pair and get more complicated from there.

Rather than try and spell out every scenario — that’s a lot to type — here’s a brief rundown of the series each team has won this year. Read this as the team before the parenthesis has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the subsequent teams.

ECU: UAB, FAU, Charlotte, Wichita State, Memphis, USF
UTSA: ECU, Tulane, Charlotte, Memphis, UAB, USF
Tulane: USF, FAU, Wichita State, ECU
Wichita State: UAB, Rice, FAU, UTSA, Charlotte
FAU: Charlotte, Memphis, USF
UAB: Tulane, Charlotte, FAU, Memphis
Charlotte: USF, Memphis, Rice
Rice: UAB, USF, UTSA, FAU
USF: Memphis, Wichita State
Memphis: Rice, Tulane

4. Series to watch

Rice at ECU and UTSA at FAU are both fascinating matchups. One side of the pairing is playing for their postseason lives. The other can win the league outright if things go well. Then add the extra dynamic of Rice owning the head-to-head tiebreaker over FAU, taking two of three from the other Owls this past weekend.

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AAC Baseball: Standings tight entering the home stretch

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Three weeks remain in the regular season and the  AAC Baseball conference title race is beginning to take shape.

SCHOOL CONF OVERALL

Notable storylines results

1. ECU’s title to lose

The Pirates entered the year as the unquestioned favorite to win the American Conference crown. Through the majority of the regular season, there’s been no reason to doubt their place atop the league standings. Only three regular-season losses have the Pirates in the hunt for a National Seed. While it’s still mathematically possible for UTSA to catch them, the odds are certainly in their favor to finish the job.

2. Rice is cooking (more)

Rice baseball is one of the reasons ECU is currently enjoying a two-game lead in the standings. While the Pirates were taking care of business against Memphis over the weekend, Rice was taking a series from UTSA, who entered the weekend tied atop the league standings with ECU. Now the Roadrunners are two games back and the Owls are in the mix to make the field as winners of eight of their last ten.

3. Who will avoid the chopping block?

There are 10 teams in the league this year and only eight spots in the conference tournament. That means two teams are going to be staying home in a few weeks and the battle for those last spots is going to come down to the wire. Three games separate the 3-seed and the last-place team in the standings (Memphis). And even if the Tigers have another tough weekend, we could be looking at seven teams for six spots.

4. What’s on deck?

There are a host of hugely important series this weekend between those middle-of-the-pack teams. Charlotte hosts Rice and FAU hosts FAU. Memphis might be in a do-or-die set with Tulane and if UTSA has any hopes of contending for a regular season title, they absolutely have to beat Wichita State at home. USF at ECU rounds out the conference slate.

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