A Look At The AAC

AAC Report: Coogs get back in the win column and some close calls in the AAC

AAC Report: Coogs get back in the win column and some close calls in the AAC
UH Football Official Twitter Account

Week 13 in the AAC was pretty darn good. Four of the six games were decided by one score. UH was almost in that category, but held on to win by 10. And can you call a game an upset if a ranked team lost to a conference opponent that had a 7-2 record coming into the game? Let's take a look at the week that was in the AAC:

UH improves to 4-7 with road win over Tulsa and get some good news this week

Turnovers were the name of the game in the Coogs road win at Tulsa. While they were outgained by 149 in total offense, the Coogs were a +3 in the turnover department. It also helped that Tulsa had -1 yard rushing. Most of that was due to their four sacks of Zach Smith. Smith, however, threw for 381 yards. But he was responsible for three of their four turnovers (two interceptions and a lost fumble). The Coogs will close out their season hosting a tough Navy team and their daunting rushing attack. While that may be enough to make some fans nervous, the team did get some good news this week as Fort Bend Foster's three star defensive tackle Chidozie Nwankwo announced his commitment to UH via a video on his Twitter account. I'm not saying he's the next Ed Oliver, but his potential is intriguing.

Other Key Results

Navy 35, #25 SMU 28: The Midshipmen played their brand of old school triple option football and ran over the Mustangs. Navy rushed for 378 yards and even mixed in 162 yards in the air. SMU was up 21-10 at the half and were essentially choked out in the second half.

#19 Cincinnati 15, Temple 13: The Bearcats went up 13-0 in the third quarter and maintained that lead into the fourth. That's when things got weird. Temple scored a touchdown, had the PAT blocked, and returned for two points. They scored another touchdown and made the PAT. Had the Owls made their first PAT, they could've potentially won the game.

#18 Memphis 49, USF 10: The Tigers set themselves up for an AAC Title game appearence with tihs win. Their run game ran wild and quarterback Brady White threw another two touchdown passes. They made light work of the Bulls and didn't allow themselves to be tripped up.

Stars of the Week

Patrick Taylor Jr, RB, Memphis: While Kenneth Gainwell may have had more rushing yards (128 to 95), Taylor had three rushing touchdowns and Gainwell had none. Advantage Taylor.

MalcolmPerry, QB, Navy: Perry had 195 yards and two touchdowns rushing, along with 162 yards and a touchdown passing in their win over SMU. He was singlehandedly responsible for the Midshipmen's biggest win of the season.

Doug Gabriel, QB, UCF: Gabriel was another quarterback who put his team on his back this week. He had 317 yards and a touchdown through the air along with 58 yards rushing in the Golden Knights' 34-31 win on the road over Tulane.

Games to Watch This Week

#19 Cincinnati @ #18 Memphis

Tulane @ SMU

Navy @ Houston

Players to Watch This Week

Brady White, Memphis: If the Tigers beat Cincinnati, they'll have a rematch against the Bearcats for the AAC Title game. But...

Malcolm Perry, Navy: ...if the Tigers lose and the Midshipmen beat SMU, they have a shot at the AAC Title game. But...

Shane Buechele, SMU: ...if the Mustangs can win and the Tigers lose, the Mustangs will go to the AAC Title game. Interresting final week in the AAC!

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Durant’s arrival marks a new era for the Rockets. Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images.

Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.

Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.

General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.

Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.

“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”

But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.

“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”

Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.

Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.

“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”

In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.

Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.

“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”

Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.

Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.

“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”

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