2024 AAC Conference Tournament

[flyingMoose]

From Critter's Pa post on another thread ...


Friday the 22nd: ("Home team" first)

ECU vs FAU 11:00 AM
Rice vs North Texas 1:30 PM
USF vs UAB 5:00 PM
WSU vs Tulsa 7:30 PM

[flyingMoose]

From Bracketology on VT regarding the AAC Tournament and its impact (really about USF's chances for an at-large bid) -


What do you think of South Florida? I think they can make a case (I need to look at the AAC/Bracket/RPI implications).



Their losses are ghastly. I don't see how they're in contention as an at-large (i.e., taking another loss). Also the loss to Georgia means they probably don't have common opponents over all those SEC teams despite the Florida win.



For those who aren't aware, Conferences that give byes or limit their pools sometimes allow their teams to make big RPI jumps. But this is heavily dependent on RPI matchups, which can vary vastly by conference/seed/etc..

So in South Florida's case, which I mentioned earlier - if they ended up getting a good W/L team in the QF and Semifinals, that [a] loss to Rice in the Finals doesn't hurt that much and it still means they end up with an RPI that is better than where they started before the conference tournament

But they don't. South Florida gets UAB (11-16) in the QFs and then the SFs could be either Tulsa (18-10) or Wichita State (15-13). The combination of that with another loss isn't putting them through.

[Critter's Pa]

The AAC tournament schedule

Semifinals Saturday the 23rd:

Winner ECU/FAU vs winner Rice/North Texas - 11:00am
Winner USF/UAB vs winner WSU/Tulsa - 2:00 PM

Finals are Sunday the 24th at 12:00 PM

RPIs for 11/17 (11/11) -- #seed in AAC tourney:

40 Rice (33) --#2
54 USF (57) --#1
82 WSU (55) --#4
100 ECU (104) --#3
105 Tulsa (86) --#5
142 FAU (132) --#6
166 Temple (165)
216 Tulane (214)
223 UAB (227) --#8
230 UTSA (253)
234 N TX (261) --#7
245 Memphis (241)
300 Charlotte (299)

Those losses to N Texas and UTSA really hurt.

Non-con RPIs (note: many of these teams end their conference seasons Thanksgiving weekend):

196 Kennesaw State
90 Indiana
11 Kansas
49 Arkansas
179 Little Rock
9 Arizona State
78 LBSU
1 Nebraska
72 Cal Poly
63 N Colorado
89 Omaha

RPIs of note:

7 SMU Frosty- Has played in all 96 sets, started all 27 matches. Hit .380 (170 39 345). Has 104 total blocks. 58 aces (!!!) and 88 service errors (!!! x2). Glad she is having a nice season. Only 1 match with double digit kills (10). Got 5 aces in wins against Nebraska and Pittsburg (4 and 7 service errors respectively).
75 K-State
104 Houston
148 Cincinnati
213 UCF*

[flyingMoose]

RPIs of note:

7 SMU Frosty- Has played in all 96 sets, started all 27 matches. Hit .380 (170 39 345). Has 104 total blocks. 58 aces (!!!) and 88 service errors (!!! x2). Glad she is having a nice season. Only 1 match with double digit kills (10). Got 5 aces in wins against Nebraska and Pittsburg (4 and 7 service errors respectively).
75 K-State
104 Houston
148 Cincinnati
213 UCF not USF

[flyingMoose]

RPI Futures-

35 Rice
52 USF

which suggests that Rice is in the NCAAs, and USF has to sweat an at-large bid if they don't win the AAC Tournament.


Pablo has USF as 64% over Rice.

[flyingMoose]

VT Bracketology comments-

AAC
Rice's loss to North Texas made me think they are out in terms of an at-large, but, looking at it, they still have some RPI love. UT-Arlington, should they win the WAC, may be Rice's only Top 50 win.

South Florida has a better shot IMO, despite the worse RPI, because of the wins. But South Florida doesn't really have much breathing room and needs to make the Finals.

AAC's best hopes are those 2 make it to the Finals and the committee gives the loser an at-large bid. If either lose in the Semis, they are probably toast. Wichita State is hosting the tournament. They could get hot and win it all or lose to Tulsa in the opening round.


I think the comment about the Shockers is spot-on.

If I read the comments of Bracketology Guy correctly, he will post his likely bracket later this week. SMU (Frosty) will get a Top 16 seed.

[Critter's Pa]

USF is 35-9 against UAB. Their last loss to UAB was in 2003, before that it was 1990. They are 22-1 since 1995 (they didn't play 91-94). They played twice last year and once this year. USF is 1-2 and UAB is 3-1 on neutral courts. USF is probably going to win this one, they swept UAB 3-0 last Sunday.

Rice may have the most difficult match-up in the first round. Rice is 13-7 against North Texas. N TX has won 3 of the last 4 against Rice, all three wins were at home (swept last year, split this year). Is there any way we can lower the roof on CKA, or maybe the scoreboard, for the Rice/N TX match? Just to give N TX that "at home" feeling. Rice is 1-2 and N TX is 2-2 on neutral courts. Out of all the opening matches, I think this one has the best chance to be an upset.

ECU is 3-2 against FAU. FAU won their first meeting in 2013. ECU has won 3 of 4 since FAU joined the AAC. Both ECU and FAU are 2-1 on neutral courts. I'm guessing ECU is going to win this one.

WSU is 43-14 vs Tulsa. We are on a 12 match winning streak including a post season win in CKA during the NIVC last year. I think the winning streak will continue.

-----------------------------------

WSU has played the most sets in the AAC- 67 conference, 115 total. Number of sets played by tourney teams:
Tulsa- 59 con, 102 total

USF- 60 con, 101 total
UAB- 55 con, 96 total

Rice- 58 con, 90 total
N TX- 62 con, 101 total

ECU- 60 con, 94 total
FAU- 58 con, 106 total

We have played 13 more sets than Tulsa, that is at least 3 more matches. The shockers have played 25 more sets than Rice, which could be half a conference season worth of matches. Could the wear and tear of a playing a lot of sets be the reason for poor play toward the end of the year? Maybe. Wonder if Brooklyn will come back a little more refreshed. I hope so. Playing the tourney at home should help a little, I would think.

[flyingMoose]

Pablo for Friday Matches

Eastern Carolina 57% over Florida Atlantic

Rice 69% over North Texas

South Florida 86% over UAB

Shockers 60% over Tulsa

[WuDrWu]

Really competitive first match. FAU takes the first set 25-22. ECU answers winning the 2nd and 3rd sets 27-25 & 25-21. FAU jumped on the Pirates in set 4 and cruised 25-12 then in the 5th it was back and forth. 6-6 and FAU ran off 3 straight to make it 9-6. Traded side outs until 12-9 then ECU ran off 4 straight to take a 13-12 lead. 13 all. 14-13 FAU. 14 all. A kill by Valeria Rosada for FAU and then a subsequent block and the Owls advance to the semi finals.

Owls were led by the aforementioned Valeria Rosada 26-6-64 .312

[1972Shocker]

Dr. Jekyll started for the Shocks and the Shocks were leading 6-1 then Mr. Hyde emerged and the Shocks found themselves down 14-19. At that point Dr. Jekyll a/k/a Morgan Stout took over with the assistance of Grace Hett and Alyssa Gonzalez to finish off the set on an 11-1 run giving them the 1st set 25-20.

Pretty similar to the first set. The Shocks forge an early 11-7 lead, Tulsa works there way back into the match. A 3-point run by Tulsa ties at 21 before the Shocks close it on a 4-1 run to take the 2nd set 25-22 to take a 2-0 lead.

Both teams seem to be playing hard. A sweep would be nice but not something that Shocks have accomplished very often this year.

Why do anything different. Shocks get out to an 11-7 lead again and stretched that to 16-11 and still led by 5 at 20-15. But a 5-1 Tulsa lead cuts the Shocks lead to 1 at 21-20. With the Shocks clinging to a 23-22 lead a Morgan Stout kill followed by a Stout service ace gave the Shocks the sweep.

[flyingMoose]

a Stout service ace ...

Morgan was visibly upset with herself for a couple of long service errors shortly before the ace - which crawled over the tape and could not be dug by Tulsa.

[flyingMoose]

Rice 3-1 North Texas

South Florida 3-1 UAB

[1972Shocker]

Swifty at 12-2-32 = .312 and Gonzo at 11-1-28 = .357 carried the Shocker offense. Maddie at 4-1-7 = .429 was efficient but not very involved.

Brooklyn at 3-5-22 = -.091 and Emerson 2-6-12 = -.083 were liabilities tonight. I guess that is why Izzi has to accumulate 16 attacks from the setter position.

Katie continues to play pretty well in the libero spot.

Tulsa simply cannot beat the Shocks in Koch Arena. IIRC that makes 23 consecutive Shocker wins over Tulsa in Koch Arena.

The Shocks only managed 15.7 points per set tonight. They won't be make the championship game if they don't find more scoring punch.

I don't expect much from Emerson and her very average arm, but we definitely need more out of Brooklyn. Perhaps feed Maddie a little bit more if possible.

[Critter's Pa]

The ECU/FAU match saw the return of Lara Uyar to CKA. In the first set she was one of two liberoes. She was in on serve receive, the other libero was in when they were serving. In the second set Lara changed to the team jersey, and for the last three sets she changed jerseys again and was the sole libero for ECU. ECU's Angeles Alderete, named AAC second team, went down with an injury in the first set. I didn't catch what happened, but she had ice on her knee and used crutches for the rest of the match. Hope it's not anything serious.

The North Texas/Rice match also had an injury. A North Texas player took a hard kill to her head, I don't remember which. I don't know if she returned to play of not, probably got a concussion. North Texas and Rice both had contingents of fans in attendance. I missed the second half of the 4th set because I needed to go pick up my dog. Rice looked pretty good. *Former Shocker Lauren Wheeler was with the North Texas Team, but she was not suited up. I wonder if she has an injury.

I didn't return until the start of the second set of the USF/UAB match. USF took the first set 25-13 and just eked out the second set 25-23. UAB returned the favor beating USF 25-13. I thought UAB was going to take the fourth set, but USF pulled out the win. If that match would have gone 5 sets, the WSU match might have started after my bedtime. UAB held the AAC player of the year, Maria Clara Andrade, to -.024 hitting, only getting 9 kills on 41 swings with 10 errors.

Was a good win for WSU. Glad they did it in three. In the first set, we sided out 33.3% and still won 25-20. WSU just had a couple more long scoring runs than Tulsa. The five aces (Swifty x2, Grace x2, and Katie) were nice.

We are going to have a heck of a time with USF tomorrow. Andrade probably doesn't have many consecutive games hitting negative. We have got to be able to handle #21 Naiya Sawtelle's back row (and front row) attack. She can really put the ball down well. I think she (or maybe Andrade) also has a big top spin jump serve. Luckily for UAB, she was serving it, and they were letting it go, out of bounds. Hopefully the Shocker's serve receive will show up big time, all match long, tomorrow. Can't let USF go on scoring runs. It's gonna be a tough match, but I still have confidence because Morgan will in the house.

I doubt FAU is going to beat Rice, but I'm rooting for them to pull out a second win.

I believe they said that FAU/Rice is at 11 AM and the Shocker match is at 2 PM Saturday.

[1972Shocker]

6 seed FAU with a reverse sweep of 2 seed Rice.

(23), (14), 22, 20, 10