Win over Temple would put Tulane alone at top of AAC | Tulane

When it lost to UNO and Southeastern Louisiana as part of a five-game skid in November and December, few people envisioned the Tulane men’s basketball team playing for sole possession of first place in the American Athletic Conference three weeks into the league schedule.

For that matter, almost no one saw the success coming before then, either. AAC coaches tabbed the Green Wave to tie for 11th out of 13 teams in their preseason poll.

Yet, those are exactly the stakes for Tulane (10-8, 4-1) as it plays at Temple (11-6, 3-1) on Sunday (noon, ESPNU) thanks to the Owls’ home victory against 18th-ranked Memphis on Thursday. The Wave can move in front of idle UAB (11-7, 4-1) and match its conference win total from a year ago, when it tied for last at 5-13.

“I’m so into the moment that I’m trying to make sure if I stay in the moment, these guys will stay in the moment,” coach Ron Hunter said after Tulane used a 32-14 finishing kick to beat Florida Atlantic 80-65 on Wednesday night. “One of the things we’ve talked about is trying to learn how to handle success with a really young team and cut off the outside noise. Don’t worry about being 4-1. Just come back tomorrow and get better.”

Tulane’s early-conference success has been multifaceted. Kaleb Banks ranks fourth in the AAC in scoring, averaging 20.0 points on 62.1% shooting. Point guard Rowan Brumbaugh, the league’s overall leader in assists (4.8 per game), averages 17.2 points. Versatile center Gregg Glenn has more assists than anyone in conference play, handing out 33 to give the Wave a unique advantage. Asher Woods averages 14.4 points with nine 3s, hitting a series of clutch shots along the way. Freshman Kam Williams, the best pure shooter on the team, has maintained a huge defensive presence even as he learns to cope with opponents taking open looks away from him.

The bench came up big in a close win against South Florida, with Mari Jordan providing a lift in the first half and Tyler Ringgold doing the same after the break. Hunter praised Jordan’s ball-hawking defense as the catalyst for the Wave’s closing run against Florida Atlantic, and it is that end of the floor where Tulane excels the most.

For the season, it leads the AAC in field goal percentage defense (.394) and is one percentage point behind Charlotte for the top 3-point field goal % defense (.300).

Critics have carped for years about opponents getting wide-open 3s against Hunter’s signature matchup (he won’t call it a zone) defense. That definitely is not the case with the 6-foot-8 Williams and Banks challenging shooters and Woods preventing the penetration that leads to easy kick-out passes to players behind the arc.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team defend the 3 at this level, with our length and with our recovery,” Hunter said. “We do a great job running them off the line, then we can recover so well in our rotations. What’s crazy about it is no one’s really played in this system outside of Asher and Gregg.”

Temple presents a tough test. The Owls went ahead of Memphis for good with 9:33 left in the first half, led by as much as 12 in the second half and held off the Tigers, 88-81, despite going 11 for 23 on free throws down the stretch. They outrebounded them 49-25, grabbing 22 on the offensive end.

Like UAB, which handed Tulane its lone conference loss, Temple returned four of its top six scorers in a league otherwise nearly bereft of key returning contributors. That quartet of Steve Settle, Quante Berry, Zion Stanford and Shane Dezenie accounted for 55 points against Memphis, supplementing marquee transfer and leading Jamal Mashburn, Jr. nicely.

Tulane will need to take its home cooking on the road. Although the Wave has won only once away from campus this season, Hunter believes the team’s current mode of operation will travel well.

“I feel really good about anything we do regardless of who we play because now these guys are locked in defensively,” he said. “As long as they keep doing that, we have a chance every time we step on the floor.”