AAC Tournament Semi-Finals: Houston
 

Saturday, March 11th, 2023
3:00 PM
Dickies Arena
ESPN2

The Bearcats (20-11 [11-7], NET #68, KenPom #52) look to hit their peak today and defeat Houston (30-2 [17-1 AAC] NET #1, KenPom #1) who is aiming to win their first national championship in program history.

Despite shooting a season-worst 28.1% from the field yesterday, the #1 Cougars defeated #9 seed East Carolina 60-44 in the first quarterfinal match-up of the day in Fort Worth.

Houston forced 17 ECU turnovers and shot 20/26 (77%) from the FT line while also holding ECU to 31.4% shooting from the field and 15.8% shooting from deep (3/19).

In our last match-up on January 28th, a 75-69 loss at Houston, the Cougars made 25/36 (69.4%) 2-point shots. AAC Freshman of the Year Jarace Walker is averaging 23 ppg and 6 rpg in both games against the Bearcats this season.

The winner of this afternoon's match-up will take on the winner of #2 Memphis and #3 Tulane at 3:15 pm Sunday afternoon in the AAC Championship.

The Cougars are 9.5-point favorites.

40 year old burn, I like it.

I learned that they've made the most final fours of any team not to win a championship.

Always just assumed they won one while Hakeem was there.

Vik better spend the entire off season getting a whole lot tougher.

Just about every player out there is physically outmatched.

It's wild...

Wes better flip this roster around or he will be on his way out.

Not much going right. Can't make a free throw, getting killed on the glass, squandering fast break opportunities. Most of our players are overmatched against this level of competition, and if things aren't going well we can get blown out.

Several B12 teams would also be physically outmatched against this Houston team. Texas Tech, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Kansas St come to mind. I still think the biggest problem with our team is DDJ and MAW together. Very small with limited athleticism if one of them is on the wing. Hopefully that changes next year.