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2024 AAC Women’s Basketball Tournament Preview

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The 2024 AAC Women’s Basketball Tournament is slated to tip off in Fort Worth, TX this week. Here’s a preview of the action.

The Favorite: Tulsa

Temira Poindexter and Delanie Crawford rank second and third in the AAC in scoring. No team in the league boasts a tandem as productive as this one has been for the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa has the longest active winning streak in league play, five games, and head-to-head wins over No. 2 Seed North Texas and No. 3 Seed Temple (Tulsa split the season series with Temple 1-1).

The Contenders: North Texas, Temple

North Texas might be the most consistent team in the league. They shoot the ball well and play solid defense almost every game. In total, that’s driven the Mean Green to the top scoring margin in the AAC, outscoring opponents by 11.2 points, which is more than double every team in the league outside of Temple.

As for Temple, the Owls rank second in the AAC in defense, allowing 62.7 points per game. Opponents are shooting just 29 percent from three against the Owls and below 40 percent from the floor. There’s a reason the league standings ended in a three-way tie at the top with these three good teams.

The Dark Horse: South Florida

Once picked as the preseason No. 1 team, South Florida got off to a slow start in league play and fell toward the rest of the pack in the standings. The talent is still there, albeit with some inconsistency in performance from game to game. The Bulls lead the conference in assist/turnover ratio. If they can play clean basketball and keep up their solid defense they could make some noise.

The Wild Card: Memphis

The Tigers were left for dead in mid-February, bottom dwellers in the standings with a 4-11 record. Then something clicked. They ended the season on a 5-1 run, knocking off East Carolina, Rice, Tulane, UTSA and UAB before falling to North Texas. They get a rematch with ECU in Fort Worth. One upset against Tulsa in the next round and their Cinderella dreams might not sound that farfetched.

The Bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Saturday, March 9, with the majority of the teams in action on Sunday, March 10. Here are the first two days of action. The full schedule is available on the conference website. All early-round games can be streamed on ESPN+, with the championship on ESPNU.

First Round | Saturday, March 9

Game 1: No. 13 Wichita State vs. No. 12 Florida Atlantic – 4 p.m. CT
Game 2: No. 14 Tulane vs. No. 11 SMU – 6 p.m. CT

Second Round | Sunday, March 10

Game 3: No. 9 East Carolina vs. No. 8 Memphis – 12 p.m. CT
Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. No. 5 South Florida – 2 p.m. CT
Game 5: No. 10 Rice vs. No. 7 UAB – 6 p.m. CT
Game 6: Game 2 winner vs. No. 6 Charlotte – 8 p.m. CT

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Rice Women’s Basketball runs out of gas vs North Texas

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Rice Women’s Basketball played North Texas tight for 38 minutes before the Owls shooting struggles finally came home to roost.

For 38 minutes, Rice women’s basketball and North Texas were locked in the makings of a class game between these two Texas-based powers. Through 38 minutes, neither team led by more than six points. There were 10 ties and seven lead changes. The back-and-forth was constant and neither team ever felt in control.

Malia Fisher and Emily Klaczek were productive from the field with Sussy Ngulefac coming off the bench with a team-high 13 points as well as four boards. Everything seemed to be going well for the home team until all of a sudden the shots stopped falling at the most inopportune time.

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The Owls missed eight consecutive shots in the final 2:05 before a last-second layup that proved irrelevant to the final result. The run of misses inflated a woeful day from deep in which Rice converted a dismal 3-of-30 attempts from three-point range, further depressing a disappointing 31 percent shooting performance from the field.

Final Box | North Texas 63 – Rice 54

Key takeaway | Slipping away

There’s never a good time to lose four in a row, but the last weeks of the regular season are a particularly painful time to do so. Two weeks ago the double-bye in the conference tournament looked exceedingly likely. Today, not so much.

Rice is currently tied in the win column with Charlotte,  UAB, Memphis and UTSA. They don’t hold the tiebreaker with any of those four, with the Roadrunners still on the schedule in the final game of the regular season. That lack of a tiebreaker is what makes the double-bye seem so out of reach right now.

If Charlotte beats FAU on Sunday or ECU on Tuesday, they’ll be guaranteed the spot ahead of Rice in the standings. The same goes for UAB if they’re able to beat Wichita State on Tuesday.

The Owls’ only chance right now would require Charlotte to lose both games, UAB to lose to Wichita State, Memphis to lose to North Texas AND Rice to beat UTSA. If that exact scenario happened, Rice would finish 10-8, a game ahead of that entire grouping.

Up Next: at UTSA (Tuesday, Mar. 5)

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Rice Women’s Basketball drops home tilt to Temple

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Rice Women’s Basketball fell behind early to Temple and couldn’t mount a comeback, dropping their third straight as the conference tournament looms.

Temple didn’t waste any time asserting their intentions on Sunday afternoon. As Rice women’s basketball slowly took their time ramping up, the visiting Owls jumped out to a 13-4 lead, putting the home team on notice. Rice volleyed back, evening the score at 16-apiece before Temple turned on the gas once again. By the time the first quarter ended, Rice was trailing by 10 points.

The Rice deficit hovered around that double-digit mark for most of the next three quarters. They had a tough time slowing down Temple guard Tarriyonna Gary, who led the visiting Owls with 20 points and knocked down all five of her attempts from three.

The long ball would prove to be too much for Rice to overcome. Every time Rice thought they’d cut into the deficit, Temple delivered a back-breaking three. Rice made 4-of-16 from deep. Temple converted 10-of-17.

A furious fourth quarter rally proved to be too little, too late for the home team. Trailing by 17 after a Temple three, Rice went on a 10-2 run, but they still trailed by nine. Malia Fisher led Rice in scoring, finishing with 24 points and eight rebounds, a valiant effort, but eventually, the clock would run out.

Final Box | Temple 75 – Rice 66

Key takeaway | Crunch time

Entering Sunday, the top six teams in the AAC were separated by one combined game in the win column. With four double-byes available for the conference tournament, the margin was razor-thin. That made Sunday’s defeat particularly costly.

Now sitting at 9-7, they hold the tiebreaker over ECU, South Florid and Tulsa, but lack the tiebreaker against Temple, UAB and Charlotte with a game against North Texas looming. The double-bye is still within reach, but how these next few games go will play a significant role in determining who gets the extra rest. Rice cannot afford another loss.

Up Next: vs North Texas (Saturday, Mar. 2)

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Rice Women’s Basketball: The most unselfish team in (the) America(n)

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Rice women’s basketball isn’t led by one singular star, instead leaning on a deep roster that shares the ball and just keeps winning games.

Rice women’s basketball is not your conventional team, at least not in today’s era of the sport where one superstar can take you a long way. The Owls sit within striking distance of the top spot in the AAC standings but you won’t find any individuals near the pinnacle of their respective leaderboards.

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Early turnovers doom Rice Women’s Basketball at Memphis

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Rice Women’s Basketball struggled early and was unable to complete a comeback, falling to Memphis on the road.

The shots were falling early for Rice women’s basketball, but they weren’t coming often enough. Slippery hands led to an astounding 14 turnovers in the first half, forcing the visiting Owls into an uphill battle against a Memphis squad that did not return the favor.

Midway through the second quarter, the Rice offense started to slow down and Memphis began to widen the gap. The Tigers led by as many as 10 points before a well-timed three from Kennedy Clifton cut the Owls’ deficit to eight heading into halftime. Despite their struggles, they had a chance to make it a ballgame in the second half.

The tide began to turn in the third quarter. Memphis turned the ball over more than Rice who got the margin back within five points as the fourth quarter arrived. Emily Klaczek gave the Owls their first lead of the second half, but a last second shot wouldn’t fall, sending the game to overtime without the services of Malia Fisher, who fouled out near the end of regulation.

Rice made just one field goal in extra time. Memphis made three, pulling back in front of the Owls to hand them a costly road loss.

Final Box | Memphis 79 – Rice 74

Key takeaway | Protect the basketball

Memphis had nine more shots than Rice on Tuesday night. The Tigers weren’t roughly as efficient as the Owls, shooting 45.5 percent from the floor to the Owls’ 47.4 percent, but what the home team lacked in efficiency they were able to make up for in volume. That’s because Rice gave the ball away way too many times, committing 22 turnovers on the night.

Even when accounting for the seven Memphis steals, the prevailing storyline was mental mistakes and unforced errors. That’s how a team like Rice, which entered the night tied for first in the win column among all AAC teams, found itself in comeback mode against a Memphis team near the bottom of the standings.

Rice is a better team than Memphis. They didn’t show that Tuesday and there are only a handful of games remaining before the wiggle room goes away. There are no mulligans in March.

Up Next: vs Temple (Sunday, Feb. 25)

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