SMU and Cincinnati are safely in the field, but Temple is teetering on the edge, perhaps needing an opening-game win over Memphis (or more) to feel safe. And Tulsa’s got some work to do. The Golden Hurricane finished second in the conference on the strength of an unlikely 10-0 start in AAC play. Among those wins was a close call on the road against lowly UCF and an overtime win at home against a USF team that has a 1-in-23,426 chance of winning this tournament.

So Frank Haith’s team has been able to produce quite a few more wins than the ability of the team would suggest. But they also lost to the Savage Storm of Southeast Oklahoma State, a Division-II school. It’s easily the worst loss for any team under consideration for the tournament. However, this loss is not included in RPI data and nobody seems to know how this loss will be subjectively accounted for by committee members. It seems like something we should have nailed down by now.

If Tulsa goes dancing, they either ran the table in Hartford this week or the committee didn’t consider the loss in the same way they’ll consider Stanford’s loss at RPI #178 DePaul. A loss that’s not nearly as bad what Tulsa suffered losing at home to a D-II team.

American Athletic Conference

All-kenpom.com: Ryan Boatright, UConn (kPOY); Will Cummings, Temple; Octavius Ellis, Cincinnati; Shaquille Harrison, Tulsa; Nic Moore, SMU.

March 12-15 at UConn.

               Qtrs Semis Final Champ
 1 SMU          100  92.5  62.3  36.8
 6 UConn       94.1  51.4  37.0  20.2
 3 Cincinnati   100  48.2  32.8  16.5
 4 Temple       100  63.0  25.6  11.8
 2 Tulsa        100  81.3  28.0  10.4
 5 Memphis      100  37.0  11.0   3.7
 8 E. Carolina 62.2   5.4   0.9   0.1
 7 Tulane      47.6   8.5   0.9   0.1
10 Houston     52.4  10.2   1.2   0.2
 9 UCF         37.8   2.1   0.2   0.02
11 S. Florida   5.9   0.4   0.07  0.004