The regular season is over. Thursday at noon, the real fun begins for the Memphis Tigers, as they will open up their postseason play in the AAC Tournament Quarterfinals.
The season so far has been a massive success, with accolades piling up for the team. Memphis went 26-5 overall, 16-2 in the AAC, and won the regular season conference title for the first time in program history. In addition, PJ Haggerty and Dain Dainja were named First Team All-AAC, Tyrese Hunter was named Second Team All-AAC, and Penny Hardaway was named the AAC Coach of the Year. Now, the Tigers have their sights set on completing the season sweep with their second AAC Tournament title.
“It’s a beautiful thing when the team gets rewarded because it’s all of our success at once, because it wasn’t just us, the guys that got the awards that did this alone, we did it together,” said Hardaway about the honors given out to the team.
The 2025 AAC Tournament bracket. Memphis is the 1-seed, and opens up play against Wichita St. on Thursday.
To open, Memphis will play Wichita St., the only team remaining in the AAC Tournament to beat Memphis this year, after Temple bowed out in the second round to Tulsa.
Hardaway noted that Memphis struggled in both games against Wichita St., winning 61-53 in Memphis on Jan. 23, then losing in Wichita 84-79 in OT.
In both games, Memphis has struggled mightily with physicality down low. Wichita has won the rebounding battle by a combined 12 boards and held First Team All-AAC big man Dain Dainja to 7 points combined in the two games.
Wichita St. center Quincy Ballard has anchored this attack against Memphis, with 19 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 blocks in their previous meeting, while Corey Washington also gave Memphis problems with his physicality in Wichita, scoring 18 points and collecting 15 rebounds in the Shockers’ OT win.
In the two games, Wichita St. has held a lead for a combined 34 minutes and 12 seconds over the Tigers. In short, Wichita St. has been a bad matchup for Memphis.
If Memphis advances past a tricky quarterfinal matchup, they will play the winner of FAU Tulane, two teams Memphis has, in contrast to Wichita St., matched up well against.
Against FAU, Memphis has two of their three biggest margins of victory in AAC play, beating the Owls by 28 in Boca Raton on Jan. 2 and by 19 in Memphis on Feb. 23. Meanwhile, in their one matchup against Tulane, Memphis won by 12 in New Orleans on Jan. 30.
Finally, if Memphis makes it, they will play in the AAC Title Game at 2:15 p.m. on Selection Sunday, a little less than three hours before the NCAA Tournament bracket gets released. Their potential opponents are much more nebulous, with North Texas and UAB being the most likely, but East Carolina and Tulsa could also meet the Tigers there.
Whatever the matchups may be, the most important item on Memphis’ agenda this week is to simply win, as any loss in this tournament would be extremely damaging to Memphis’ tournament resume.
The way to do that, in the Dain Dainja’s estimation, is to care. “I feel like this conference is really underrated… our mentality is going to have to be, whoever we play, we just got to care,” said Dainja. He asserted that if they play desperate, they will win the AAC tourney.
It’s March, and after the most successful regular season since 2013, the Tigers have hit the postseason, which will ultimately define this team. As Hardaway put it, everyone’s records are 0-0, and the regular season records mean nothing now.
“Prove ourselves right, not others wrong,” Hardaway said. “We gotta keep earning our respect.”
