American Athletic Conference Championship – Second Round
No. 6 SMU (20-11, 11-7 AAC) vs. No. 11 Temple (12-19, 5-13 AAC) OR No. 14 UTSA (11-20, 5-13 AAC)
Dickies Arena – Fort Worth, Texas
Thursday, March 14, 2024 – 8 p.m. CT
TV: ESPNU | Radio: KAAM 770 AM | Audio Streaming: SMU App (Google Play | Apple App Store)
DALLAS – The outcome disappointed SMU men's basketball coach Rob Lanier. But what he saw on Sunday left him encouraged of what is still to come.
That's how the second-year head coach described his team's finish to the 2023-24 regular season, a four-point loss to UAB where the Mustangs had a double-digit second half lead slip away.
Instead of a two-game win streak heading into Thursday's American Athletic Conference Tournament opener, the Mustangs come in off a 1-1 finish in the final week of the regular season.
Yet, that's not what Lanier is focusing on.
"I feel better about (the UAB loss) because it's closer to who we are and we have a better chance to win next week playing with the kind of fight and focus and intensity that we had (on Sunday)," Lanier said during the SMU Coaches Show on Monday. "We need to make some free throws. We need to get a couple more rebounds. But it's easy to pinpoint those things when you fight the way we fought yesterday. Otherwise we're just crossing our fingers and hoping things go our way and that's the way we had played the previous four games."
What Lanier saw from his team was a return to what had made them so successful in the non-conference portion of the season. SMU (20-11 overall, 11-7 AAC) held the Blazers under 40 percent shooting from the field in the game, the first time it has done that to an opponent since January 16 against Temple. Defense had been the team's calling card, but the Mustangs had struggled in conference play to maintain their intensity and focus.
Against the Blazers, SMU returned to that, despite a tough loss.
"When you get to March, if your team is going to have a successful run, they start to take ownership of all the things that you've been preaching since the summertime," Lanier said. "We wanted it to come together three weeks ago, but oftentimes, and I've been in this situation before where it catches hold, and I felt at halftime that that's what we were embarking on. I'm looking in (player's eyes) and there's no pushback. There's nobody cowering. There's nobody looking at the floor. They are locked in. And we made some mistakes down the stretch and some execution and some coaching errors, but the engagement we had yesterday is exactly what we need going forward."
That intensity is exactly what the Mustangs will need to navigate the next few days at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.
By virtue of being the sixth-seed in the AAC Tournament, SMU will not have to play during Wednesday's opening round. But it also means the Mustangs won't know their opponent until the outcome of No. 11 Temple and No. 14 UTSA. The winner of that game will face SMU at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
If the Mustangs are able to earn the victory, they would move on to face No. 3 Charlotte in the AAC quarterfinals. The 49ers earned the double-bye in the tournament, giving them more time to rest ahead of the matchup.
While SMU had an opportunity to be in that position, Lanier isn't worried about how many games his team will have to play back-to-back to win a tournament title. In March, anything is possible and it's up to the players to put themselves in position to win, no matter the circumstances they face.
"When you get to this time of the year, you aren't going to be tired," Lanier said. "If you've got to play four games in four days, you're going to be able to do it. If you get that far, stamina, none of that will be a problem, I promise you. You've just got to get there."
