Moon Stamp In the Field – AAC Men’s Championship Tournament (Day 1)

Last year, I died on the Power 6 conference hill a disgusting amount of times. I was ready to defend the honor of the American Athletic Conference until I was rightfully kicked out of the Arby’s drive thru.

Welcome to a series I’m calling Moon Stamp in the Field, where a member of Moon Stamp goes to an event in the wild (instead of living on the internet. In this first episode, I’m traveling to the AAC Men’s Championship Tournament in Fort Worth. I’ve been to this tournament a lot, but yesterday was the first time as a neutral fan.

Last year I would have died on so many hill for this conference. I was fully behind the Power 6 moniker, getting in verbal fights online and in real life multiple times saying that Power 6 was a totally real thing and not just something the AAC was making up.

Now, I feel nothing, except an old brotherly love for Memphis and a recognition of certain musical patterns. This is more of a written diary of my first day at the tournament. It’s probably going to be a lot of words. I think this will end up being more of a daily narrative than a full on review. I will try to put tweets and memes throughout.

Dickies Arena

Ever since I started going to the AAC Tournament, it’s always been at Dickies Arena. And each year Dickies ends up being a really nice arena.

By really nice I mean the bathrooms are extraordinarily clean. There’s a secret bathroom by the bar area that feels like a little club. Mostly because there’s never anyone in there during the game. To be fully fair to everyone, there are not that many people there during the games. In the past years Memphis fans would stay throughout the entire tournament to see the finals. This year it seems that they knew Memphis was not making it out of the first round, so the tournament feels a little more empty than usual.

The concessions leave a lot to be desired, but that may be more to the fact that everything is closed. I’d imagine it’s not conducive to open for a few fans. On the plus the seats are pretty comfortable, and I find this little scoreboard fun.

UNT v. FAU

First Half

I got off to a great start to the trip by arriving to the arena about 25 minutes late. Blame Houston traffic and the fact I felt a spiritual need to stop at Buc-ees. I actually don’t love Buc-ees. I find a lot of their food to be mid, and the experience is always overcrowded. But the bathrooms rock and I’m a little pee-er.

Because of my late arrival. I didn’t really catch the beginning of the game. And because of the fact UH was playing I was trying to find a TV to watch the game. I was already sub-twenty percent and didn’t want to risk missing Jon Rothstein’s tweets (they both infuriate me and make me feel comforted).

I’ll say I was fully behind UNT, not for Texas love. Not because of I know people who went to UNT. Not even because I think being a team of Owls is stupid. No, it’s because the FAU football coach is Tom Herman. And deep down I understand why he did what he did. I still utterly hate him, and have psychically nourished myself on his diminished profile.

I’d like to give a shoutout to the UNT fans at the game. It probably helped that UNT was something like 30 minutes away from the tournament

Not to be that guy, but both bands played what are essentially Civil War songs for their fight songs. Maybe I’m spoiled by UH just going hard on every song, and all of them sounding relatively modern, but there are a lot of bands I just can’t get into (see Temple band below).

My apologies to both teams as well for not being fully invested in this game. I was busy searching around for the UH game. It seemed like it was a deliberate choice not to have ESPN or ESPN2 on. I’d like to imagine it’s out of jealousy, but it’s more likely they sponsored TVs were filling up the arena. So i was traveling around looking for a TV. There’s a cool bar area and second floor bar area at Dickies. The problem that area is by the suites, of which two are being used, and security guards get testy. Listen I get caring about your job and taking pride, but there is zero chance there are enough terroristic threats to Dickies Arena such that I need to get asked if I’m trying to get into the suites when watching Texas A&M v. Kentucky.

The real stand out to me with this game was, what I can only dub the “Back that Ass Up” strategy. I have watched a fair amount of college basketball and have literally never seen this employed. Sure, I’ve see strong forwards back themselves toward the basket, and then take a hook shot. Simple stuff.

UNT takes it to the next level, backing that ass up almost to the basket, and then distributing it to the perimeter. The cycle repeats until a 3-pointer is attempted (emphasis on attempted) or a hook shot is finally taken. And the really annoying this is, this works as a strategy. With better shooters this is almost a foolproof plan. A defender is forced to either foul or just deal with the pressure. It might be the best offensive scheme I have ever watched disguised as one of the worst games I have ever watched.

And while we’re on the subject of CJ Noland, I just wanted to give that guy a shoutout. He was the best player on UNT team, and vaguely reminded me of Kenneth Lofton Jr. FAU had a player, Goldin (?), who I’m going to refer to as Zach Edey light. It’s not because he really reminded me of Zach Edey all that much, it’s just he was about 3 inches taller than anyone on the court at any time. He also acted as FAU’s best offensive player. He also looked like one of the players on thr Monstars.

UNT ended up playing like erratic children who didn’t really have a game plan. Like there must have been, but it felt indicative of a fifth grade recess game than a college tournament game. They also should have had way more fouls (at least from what I could see). Only 5 fouls, but I could hear the slapping like a cheap motel after pay day.

Second Half

I’d like to apologize to the American Athletic Conference and it’s tournament, because I just didn’t pay attention to this second half. There was this second floor area with a tv wall, and I found myself just watching the UH game. If UH had been up by 15, I could’ve watched in peace, but instead I was rocked.

At this point I should probably apologize to the Temple fans who were watching the Ohio State-Illinois game. After the sixth “Kelvin he is limping,” they were probably incredibly tired of my tactical assessment. Because I don’t know who cleared this, but J’Wan Roberts was back in the game. And by back in the game, he was hobbling up and down the court. He couldn’t even walk, let alone stumble around like one of those Attack on Titan giants (titan felt weird here).

Of course, the moment the coaching staff came to the realization that having a player half stumbling-half limping was not a good idea UH came back. Maybe it’s because they realized that it was a fine idea not to foul every time Tech went up for a shot. More likely it’s because they were playing like a team again, with Cryer, Sharp, Mylik, and literally everyone who isn’t hurt stepping up. Even more likely it was the 18 (at the time of writing) turnovers.

So with my Texas Tech bloodlust feeling satiated for the moment, I was able to enjoy the game in front of me. Because it was a legitimately good game. Much stronger than I expected from UNT, especially after those first viewings. It also helped this was basically a UNT home game, where every little moment that went right had a bellowing green mass washing over it. They also were just killing it from three and had strong defensive stops.

I also think that FAU is adopting the “back that ass up” strategy. I’m also not crazy because I’ve mentioned it to multiple people, all of whom, after watching for a couple seconds, have agreed with my strategy assessment. And done right, it’s actually a killer strategy. All the defender can do is stand tall or foul. The offensive player then dishes it out or goes for the basket. I’m pretty sure this is how basketball was playing the 10 years after it was invented, but I’m starting to think it’s the strat of the future.

But, in the game Zach Edey light is just killing it, making every basket or free throws or perfectly assisting whenever I take a break from the TV (which is much more frequent now). It doesn’t help his case, though, UNT is just draining 3s like they’re anointed to win the game. UNT also won the cheer challenge, but that felt like they were setting FAU up for failure, so I count it like I count a Dodgers World Series win.

With UNT going back up in the game thanks to defensive stops, bad UNT shooting, and probably just being the better basketball players, I realized UH was in Elvin territory. I analyze UH victories not on quads or points or any other numerical indicator. I analyze them based on if Elvin got into the game. And, with 2 minutes left, the Victorian ghost was released onto Tech to end their Big 12 season. After that, I could focus fully on UNT and FAU, other than the occasional glance to check for an Elvin 3.

And what a perfect time, because thanks to a couple FAU defensive flops and a couple UNT free throws, UNT is back in the game. Of course Zach Edey light couldn’t allow that, immediately drawing an And 1.

As the game wound down, UNT did that really annoying thing where they had a modicum of belief. So they fouled repeatedly, hit a 3 or two. And then they fouled more. And there fans felt too much hope. A people should know when they’re conquered, and as Temple and Charlotte literally waited in the wings for UNT to realize that because it was 8:30. Game ends with an FAU victory.

Temple v. Charolette

It was nice to see my old friends at Temple again. To be fully fair, the basketball team was never very memorable. But, their band knew how to play like no one’s business. I’m coming back to re-write this paragraph because I forgot how annoying those geeks are. Like if I was a Temple fan I’d love them, but they literally never shut up. Even when they’re not playing, they’re making some sort of noise with their mouth. With that said, throughout the game, they were playing banger after banger (Mr. Brightside, Toxic, that one Lil Nas X song).

You may have realized that there is not a first half/second half split for this game. That’s because this was a brutal game to watch. I’ve compared the AAC and the tournament to CONCACAF before, because sometime it’s just like watching a smut film. This game was absolutely the same. My brother sent these stats to me midway through the second half.

Hopefully that explains why I don’t have a lot to talk about from this game. There are games I watched yesterday that had more points scored in the first half than either team did this game. After 3 minutes the game was still 2-2, so I should’ve known what was coming down the pipe. Temple played for most of the first half like it was afraid to shoot the ball. Like they’d continually pass the ball, even with a clearly open shot. I don’t know if the coach emphasizes not missing, but they just wouldn’t shoot.

It was also clear the refs wanted to go home, because they really didn’t want to call a single thing. I heard the same motel slapping this game. It was brutal, but the game moved quickly.

There are maybe a 100 people here, and an usher (who to be fully fair looks like 17), is checking tickets for his section.

My standout player was 33 on Temple, Sam Hofman. Not because he was a spectacular player, nor because he was the star of the team. It’s because he looked like he was playing the wrong sport. He needed to be a linebacker. Maybe he was a linebacker. But he played like a brick wall, dominating the post because not a single person could move him. Maybe he is the kryptonite to the back that ass up strategy.

He didn’t even make a basket (from what I remember), until deep into the second half. That 3 was also the momentum shifter. I credit Sam Hofman with Temple winning. I wish I had more notes from this game, but my eye prescription got worse watching it.

So, thus ended my first day on the ground. I’m not sure if I’ll do this again for todays session, but the AAC Tournament as a non-fan is even more chill than I remember. If you stuck through the entire 2400 words you’re a trooper.

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