Editor's Note: Dick Weiss, a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, has covered college sports in Philadelphia and New York for more than 40 years. He will be providing regular commentary for the American Athletic Conference during the 2013-14 season.
The American Athletic Conference is comprised of some of the most successful basketball programs in the country. As in this fall, where its upper-tier football teams gained national recognition, basketball is helping the league become a household name.
Multiple media outlets are realizing the value of this membership and the potential to have a multiple-bid conference with a repeat national champion. This week's AP top-25 poll speaks volumes for the respect The American has earned from the writers with some impressive early season performances. Three teams -- defending national champion Louisville (No. 7), UConn (No. 12) and Memphis (No. 16) -- are nationally ranked. That is one more than the ACC and two more than the Big East.
Louisville has been hovering around the top five all season. UConn and Memphis have climbed back into national relevance with huge RPI victories over the weekend.
Memphis (5-1), which had been haunted with the stigma of having never beaten a ranked team under Josh Pastner, finally had a huge breakthrough when the Tigers defeated fifth-ranked Oklahoma State, 73-68, Sunday night in the championship of the Old Spice Classic in Florida. The next night, unbeaten UConn (8-0) defeated 15th-ranked Florida, 65-64, at a loud, sold-out Gampel Pavilion in Storrs when senior guard Shabazz Napier made another money shot at the buzzer.
"You always see highlight films of the guys hitting the last shot or guys at the free-throw line making the free throws,'' Napier said. "You want to be the hero. You want to be the guy who's known as the hero at the end of the game. Growing up, I wanted to be Superman. Everyone wants to be a hero. I was fortunate enough to be in the right spot at the right time.''
Maybe he could audition for the role of superhero in DC comics.
With the Huskies down 64-63, Napier pulled up for a jumper with roughly three seconds left in regulation. He hit the backboard, but forward De'Andre Daniels back tipped the ball to him after the miss. Napier made the most of his second chance, nailing the gamewinner as time expired. Then he ran into the crowd to celebrate.
That was, as they say in football, a Heisman moment and, combined with a four-point play he made with 33 seconds to play, should push Napier – a major four-year contributor from Boston who represented Puerto Rico in the World Cup qualifying tournament last summer and may be the most complete college guard in the country – deeper into the conversation as a legitimate candidate for national player of the year.
Napier, who finished with 26 points and made 5 of 8 three pointers, deserves a longer look now along with players like forward Doug McDermott of Creighton, guard Marcus Smart of Oklahoma State and freshman power forward Julius Randle of Kentucky.
UConn should be used to drama by now. The Huskies have last-minute victories over Maryland, Boston College and Indiana and now against an injury-riddled, but determined Florida team that should be a contender in the SEC once it gets healthy.
"I'm happy but I'm a little exhausted,'' UConn coach Kevin Ollie said. "Another one-point game, but once again, we showed our resolve. You look on the stat sheet and I don't know how we do it. They shoot 49 percent and outrebound us but at the end of the day, we get it done. It's a magical team. They've been through a lot.''
Last year's UConn team was all dressed up with nowhere to go. The Huskies won 20 games, but were not eligible to participate in the postseason. There will be no keeping this year's team home from this March's NCAA dance.
Memphis took a huge, much needed step forward too, beating Oklahoma State, which is the co-favorite in the Big 12 with Kansas, and limiting Smart, who played with flu-like symptoms, to just 12 points on 4-of-13 shooting and while forcing him into five turnovers.
The intersectional, neutral-site game was the second meeting between both teams. Earlier, Smart reestablished his lottery credentials when he blew up for 39 points as the Cowboys blew past Memphis, 100-80, in Stillwater.
“I'm not a revenge guy," Pastner said. "I'm not like an ill-will guy. I think when you hold things in, things come out sideways. I talked to our guys about that. We needed to have course correction, and we corrected some of the course."
Pastner and Ollie are relatively new head coaches in the college game. The 36-year old Pastner, a former assistant to Lute Olson and John Calipari, inherited a Memphis team that was the premier program in Conference USA for years under Coach Cal in 2009. Calipari rejuvenated the Tigers into one of the one of the great basketball traditions operating outside a major media market without the benefit of a great football program. Pastner has been about as successful as anyone could have hoped, constantly landing excellent recruiting classes and taking his program to the NCAA tournament in three of four season. Pastner's teams have averaged 27 wins a season .He had no trouble with the NCAA and his APR has been perfect.
But he had a blotch on his resume that Memphis fans were slow to dismiss. He was 0-for-13 against Top 25 teams.
An earlier loss to Oklahoma State was a disaster image-wise for a talented, guard-oriented team with huge preseason expectations in hoops-obsessed Memphis and gave the demanding fans there, who fill FedExForum for every home game, another chance to trash him, suggesting the Tigers underachieve and that Pastner was not ready for prime time.
Ironically, Calipari was 2-11 against top-25 teams his first nine years at Memphis but nobody seemed to notice after the Tigers' program skyrocketed and advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight in 2007 and the national championship game the following year.
That story finally changed for the better for Pastner and the Tigers after forward Shaq Goodwin scored 17 points and point guard Joe Jackson hit four key free throws late to ensure a close win over Oklahoma State, which should create a huge breakthrough and morale boost for this determined team.
"Of course we wanted to win it for our coach,'' Goodwin said. “I hate to say we wanted to prove people wrong, but it just felt good to win our coach a top-five win.''
Pastner finally has gotten the monkey off his back when his team has showed it could play against a team of comparable talent.
Ollie, a former UConn star and NBA veteran is writing a new chapter in UConn basketball, which previously had multiple chapters written by Dee Rowe and Jim Calhoun. Ollie has the resources to keep the Huskies men's team on the national stage, much like Geno Auriemma has done with the women's side.
Having a clutch player like Napier helps. Napier has suddenly found himself drawing comparisons to iconic guard Kemba Walker, who led UConn to a 2011 national championship.
"Those are big shoes to fill,'' Napier said. "I'd have to win a national championship.''
One step at a time. But these Huskies are showing enormous promise.