Men’s conference
As college basketball season begins, almost every conference in the country is saying goodbye to old teams and hello to new ones.
The American Athletic Conference’s six new teams come by way of Conference USA (C-USA). The Shockers will face all six new teams in regular season play.
Here’s a snapshot of each new conference opponent coming into their first seasons in the American:
Charlotte 49ers
Preseason Conference Rank: 13
Preseason Conference Awards: N/A
Last season, the 49ers beat Eastern Kentucky University in the Discount Tire College Basketball Invitational Championship (CBI), becoming one of three champions in NCAA Division I. This is Charlotte’s first postseason title.
The 49ers are coached by interim head coach Aaron Fearne, who was promoted from associate head coach after the departure of former head coach Ron Sanchez.
Lu’Cye Patterson is the only one of three All-Conference players returning to Charlotte for the 2023-24 season after Brice Williams and Aly Khalifa transferred to the University of Nebraska and Brigham Young University.
Florida Atlantic Owls
Preseason Conference Rank: 1
Preseason Conference Awards: 2x Preseason Players of the Year, 2x First Team All-Conference
The Owls are coming off of a Cinderella run to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament, losing to No. 4 San Diego State University on a buzzer-beater. The Owls received an auto-bid to the tournament after winning Conference-USA.
Juniors Johnell Davis and Alijah Martin both return after entering the national spotlight during their tournament run and were named Co-Preseason Players of the Year in the American Athletic Conference.
FAU enters this season ranked No. 10 in the AP Poll, the first time the program has made the preseason ranking.
North Texas Mean Green
Preseason Conference Rank: 6
Preseason Conference Awards: N/A
The Mean Green are coming into this season as the defending National Invitational Tournament champions, beating their old and new conference rivals, the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
Head coach Ross Hodge was hired this spring after the departure of former head coach Grant McCasland, the new head coach at Texas Tech.
UNT lost C-USA Conference Player of the Year Tylor Perry, a fifth-year transfer at Kansas State University.
Rice Owls
Preseason Conference Rank: 11
Preseason Conference Awards: 1x Second Team All-Conference
Rice was knocked out of the second round of the CBI last season by Southern Utah after the Owls came back from a 14-point deficit to no avail.
Scott Pera, head coach at Rice, is in his seventh year with the program. He took over for Mike Rhoades after Rhoades left for Virginia Commonwealth University in 2014.
Fifth-year senior Max Fiedler was the Owls’ lone preseason award recipient with his nomination to Second Team All-Conference. Last season, Fiedler was the first Division 1 player within the past 30 years to average at least 11 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists and connect on 73.5% from the floor.
UAB Blazers
Preseason Conference Rank: 4
Preseason Conference Awards: 1x First Team All-Conference
At the end of last season, the Blazers lost to fellow former C-USA team, North Texas, in the final of the NIT and lost in the C-USA Tournament to FAU in the final round.
Andy Kennedy, the second leading scorer all time at UAB, enters his fourth year coaching the Blazers. In leading the team to three straight seasons with 20+ wins, he became one of five active coaches to accomplish this feat.
Guard Eric Gaines was named to the preseason First Team All-Conference. Jordan Walker, C-USA First Team All-Conference player, has moved on to the NBA, and the Blazers will be looking for a way to replace the No. 3 scorer in the country from last season.
UTSA Roadrunners
Preseason Conference Rank: 14
Preseason Conference Awards: N/A
The University of Texas at San Antonio finished their season No. 11 in C-USA. They lost to Rice in the first round of the C-USA Tournament after splitting their regular season series.
Steve Hanson is in his eighth year with the Roadrunners. During the transition to the American, Hanson has retooled both his roster and coaching staff to “meet the moment of this new era for UTSA basketball.” Almost all of his coaching staff was hired over this past summer.
Looking at UTSA’s roster, 12 of their 15 players are transfers. Jordan Ivy-Curry, a junior guard, transferred away to Pacific University and then came back.
Women’s conference
As college basketball season begins, almost every conference in the country is saying goodbye to old teams and hello to new ones.
The American Athletic Conference’s six new teams come by way of Conference USA (C-USA). The Shockers will face all six new teams in regular season play.
Here’s a snapshot of each new conference opponent coming into their first seasons in the American:
Charlotte 49ers
Preseason Conference Rank: 10
Preseason Conference Awards: 1x Second Team All-Conference Pick
Charlotte ended their season with a loss in the Conference USA (C-USA) tournament semifinals to eventual champions Middle Tennessee.
Preseason Second Team All-Conference guard Dazia Lawrence represented USA Basketball at the FIBA Under-23 3×3 World Cup. Lawrence scored in double digits 25 times last season and led the 49ers with an average of 17 points per game.
Cara Consuegra is in her first season as head coach in Charlotte. She had a brief stint in the WNBA with the now-defunct Utah Starzz before going to Penn State as director of basketball operations.
Florida Atlantic Owls
Preseason Conference Rank: 14
Preseason Conference Awards: N/A
Florida Atlantic finished the 2022-23 season in 11th and last place in C-USA. In their first season in the American, the story seems the same: the Owls were picked to finish 14th and last in the preseason coaches’ poll.
Jennifer Sullivan, the head coach at FAU, is in her third year with the team and made her way to the Owls from the University of Tennessee. Over her two seasons with FAU, she has a .158 winning percentage in conference play and a .283 winning percentage overall.
C-USA Freshman of the Year Aniya Hubbard returns as a sophomore after leading the Owls in points per game. She scored a career-high 28 points against UAB last season.
North Texas Mean Green
Preseason Conference Rank: 12
Preseason Conference Awards: N/A
After nine seasons at Texas A&M-Commerce, Jason Burton begins his first season with UNT in 2023-2024. He is Texas A&M-Commerce’s winningest coach of all time.
Former Wichita State guard Shamaryah Duncan will play for the Mean Green this season after three years with the Shockers. She is part of a four-player transfer class at North Texas.
North Texas ended last season with a first-round exit against UAB in the C-USA conference tournament.
Rice Owls
Preseason Conference Rank: 3
Preseason Conference Awards: 1x Second Team All-Conference Pick
Under third-year head coach Lindsay Edmonds, the Owls had their best start last season at 9-0 and finished 23-9. With this record, Rice made its first postseason appearance in program history in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT).
Junior Malia Fisher was picked in the AAC Coaches’ Poll as a Preseason Second Team All-Conference member. Fisher left Conference USA as an All-Conference Second Teamer.
Transfer Emily Klaczek is expected to be a big help to the Owls from behind the three-point line. Edmonds said that Klaczek “will really continue to stretch the defense” for Rice this season. Klaczek joins Sussy Ngulefac out of Samford as the two transfers joining the Owls this season.
UAB Blazers
Preseason Conference Rank: 13
Preseason Conference Awards: N/A
C-USA All-Freshman and UAB’s leading scorer Denim DeShields returns to UAB for her sophomore year. Last season, DeShields set a career-high in points (36) against Florida International University.
Head coach Randy Norton has been at UAB for the last decade. From 2017-2020, the Blazers won at least 20 games in three consecutive seasons under his leadership.
The Blazers lost to Western Kentucky in the quarterfinals of the C-USA Championship Tournament last season and did not make it to the postseason.
UTSA Roadrunners
Preseason Conference Rank: 8
Preseason Conference Awards: 1x Second Team All-Conference Pick
UTSA ended last season with a loss to Western Kentucky by 15 points in the C-USA Championship Tournament semifinals.
Karen Aston, third-year head coach of the Roadrunners, has been the head coach at conference rivals Charlotte and UNT. Aston was a major part of these program’s rebuilds, returning Charlotte to the postseason for four consecutive years, including their second NCAA Tournament appearance.
Senior Jordyn Jenkins was named to the Preseason All-Conference Second Team. As a junior, Jenkins was the C-USA Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year after she made her way to the Roadrunners from the Trojans of the University of Southern California.
