First New Year's Eve, now Super Bowl Sunday -- another awful loss for UConn in Houston. What more can we say? We'll let Ryan Boatright and Kevin Ollie do the talking:

BOATRIGHT:



“I kept going over, talking to K.O., he did a great job of helping me stay in the game, staying mentally tough, keep playing. Even though you’re getting hit, you’ve got to play through it, you can’t dwell on it.”

(on Amida Brimah's fifth foul)

“Ridiculous. Every time we come down here, tough, there’s a call like that. Last year, we lost when (TaShawn Thomas), they called a crazy foul (for) him. I just don’t understand. There’s three seconds on the clock, he caught the ball with his back to the basket. You know he’s trying to do a move that he’s not comfortable doing. Personally, it looked like he slipped to me. But that’s the referee’s call, you’ve got to live with it.”

“I’ve just got to continue to lead, continue to play UConn basketball. I never set out to play outside of the system. Today I shot 26 shots, I didn’t even know that. I don’t like shooting that much, personally. But it was called for.”

“I’m trying to play within the system and let everybody eat.”

“Now, I know how Shabazz felt last year in some games. I can honestly see what he was going through sometimes.”

OLLIE:



(on Houston committing just one turnover)

"You’ve got to get a little bit more ball pressure, take a little bit more gambles, getting in the passing lane a little bit. Because we need cheap buckets. We have a hard time now scoring in halfcourt. That’s been all year, that’s been one of our deficiencies.”

(on relying on Boatright)

“It’s a tough situation, any time you’re getting double- and triple-teamed. I’m not gonna talk about the refs, but some of those calls, he’s going to the bucket, he’s getting hit, and for some reason they’re not making the calls that I see out there. But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to leave the refs alone. He’s got to play his game. He’s got the heart of a champion. He tried to will us to a victory, but it was a little bit too late.”

“He’s got three guys draped on him. You’ve got to make the passes. We wanted to establish Amida. He got one dunk, but he got in foul trouble. I’m not gonna run an AAU team, he comes down and just run pick-and-roll and jack up on three people.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to have a pity party for ourselves. Nobody’s gonna help us out of this. We’ve got to help ourselves out of it by playing hard, looking at the tape, everybody coming in, chipping in and doing their part. We’re gonna play hard each and every game, until the end of the season.”

(on why UConn started off playing zone)

“They’ve got two 6-7 guys, and I wanted to keep Amida out of foul trouble. I knew they were gonna isolate Amida with Pollard. That was our matchup. He’s a 6-7 three-man. He can put it on the floor, he can shoot, so it’s a mismatch problem for Amida. I didn’t want to get him with a quick foul.”

Sports reporters are supposed to be neutral and play it right down the middle when it comes the teams and sports that they cover. There's no cheering in the press box, they say, and with the occasional notable exception, that largely holds true in college basketball.

What we can root for, however, is the story. It makes things much more enjoyable and interesting to cover when there are intriguing storylines behind certain teams, games or -- in this case -- conferences. The American Athletic Conference, to be exact.

While no one was happy to see Louisville leave (and no one really cared about Rutgers' departure), we all knew it was coming. We also were hoping for some good stories to pop up in the AAC, even without Louisville. Danny Manning was joining the league as head coach at Tulsa. His two battles against Larry Brown, who coached Manning to a national title with Kansas in 1988 (or did Manning lead Brown to that title?) was juicy stuff. And joining Brown at SMU was Emmanuel Mudiay, the No. 1 recruit in the nation, per most recruiting services.

Mudiay would make SMU better than it already was -- and the Mustangs already were pretty good, with Nic Moore, Markus Kennedy and Keith Frazier returning and Xavier transfer Justin Martin joining the fray. SMU beat UConn twice last year and would rightfully be not only the preseason favorite to win the conference, but a legit candidate for the Final Four. This was going to be fun.

Then, it all unraveled. Manning joined Louisville as another ACC defection, bolting incoming Tulsa for Wake Forest. All whole bunch of good players transferred (TaShawn Thomas and Danuel House of Houston, to Oklahoma and Texas A&M, respectively; Temple's Anthony Lee to Ohio State; USF's John Egbunu to Florida). 

And the big blow was Mudiay, who apparently had a whole bunch of eligibility concerns stemming from his two years at Deion Sanders' Prime Prep (who ever would have guessed that could happen?), is instead going to play professionally in China.

Suddenly, the AAC just got a whole lot less interesting next season.

We’re pretty much at the halfway point of the American Athletic Conference schedule, so why not hand out some mid-season AAC awards? The conference will essentially hand out the same hardware the Big East used to dole out, though with only 10 teams, there will just be first and second all-league teams (no third team), along with a few honorable mention selections.

Here we go (and remember, all references to statistical categories are for conference games only):

FIRST TEAM

Shabazz Napier, UConn: See also: Year, Player of the.

Russ Smith, Louisville: Still terrific, still a Husky-killer, still equally capable of winning or losing a game all by himself.

Montrezl Harrell, Louisville: League’s leading rebounder and perhaps most physically intimidating player.

Sean Kilpatrick, Cincinnati: Best player on league’s best team.

Justin Jackson, Cincinnati: Best defensive player on league’s best defensive team.

Joe Jackson, Memphis: May not even be best player on his team or best Jackson in the league, but a preseason first-teamer who’ll probably end up there, as well.

SECOND TEAM

DeAndre Daniels, UConn: Napier himself calls Daniels UConn's best player. Huskies sure hope his high ankle sprain heals quickly.

Shaq Goodwin, Memphis: Physically imposing (6-9, 245 lbs.) player who may merit first-team status.

TaShawn Thomas, Houston: Thursday night’s clunker vs. UConn was first time he hasn’t hit double figures this season.

Nic Moore, SMU: Best player on floor (20 points, six assists) in ‘Stangs win over UConn on Jan. 4.

Isaiah Sykes, UCF: Only player in AAC among league leaders in scoring (18.1 ppg) and rebounding (8.6).

HONORABLE MENTION

Markus Kennedy, SMU

Kadeem Jack, Rutgers

Victor Rudd, USF

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Shabazz Napier, UConn. Russ Smith was the preseason pick, but this is a virtual no-brainer. Napier leads the Huskies in scoring, assists, steals and rebounds (!) and has certainly been more valuable to his team than any other player in the nation. And no one is more clutch, a trait he's had since high school. He’s a strong national player of the year candidate, too, though it’s hard to see him beating out Creighton’s Doug McDermott at this point.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Danrad Knowles, Houston. One interesting thing about the America is that it is dominated by upperclassmen. The conference’s top five scorers are all seniors and eight of its top 10 scorers are juniors or seniors. In fact, Knowles (9.4 ppg) and Louisville’s Terry Rozier (9.1) are the only two frosh among the league’s top 30 scorers (27^th and 30^th, respectively). Of course, it’s not all about scoring, which is why UConn’s Amida Brimah, USF’s John Egbunu and Chris Perry and SMU’s Ben Moore are all still very much in the running for this award. But as of now, Knowles (who also averages 6.3 rebounds and 2.1 blocks) is probably the most complete package.

COACH OF THE YEAR: Mick Cronin, Cincinnati. In his seven seasons in the Big East, Cronin never won this award. But he’s got the Bearcats, picked to finish fourth in the preseason coaches’ poll, undefeated and all alone at the top of the AAC standings. There’s recently been some talk of national coach of the year consideration, too, though that seems a bit lofty, in my mind. (Larry Brown is a distant second right now).

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Justin Jackson, Cincinnati. This award usually goes to a player who either leads the league in blocked shots or steals, so consider this: Jackson leads the AAC in blocks (3.6) and is third in steals (2.1). Impressive. Amida Brimah may win this award for years to come, but not this season.

SIXTH MAN AWARD: Michael Dixon, Jr., Memphis. This is a tough one, especially considering there are a lot of players in the league who have started at times and come off the bench at others, sort of clouding the definition of sixth man. UConn’s Niels Giffey merits consideration, no doubt, but we’ll go with Dixon, who’s averaging 11.4 points primarily off the Tigers’ bench.

STUDENT-ATHLETE AWARD: Tim Abromaitis, Notre Dame. Sorry, just kidding. Sort of force of habit. Didn’t he win this award, like, six years in a row in the Big East? Anyway, your guess is as good as mine for this award. It’s too bad walk-ons aren’t eligible, though, or UConn’s Pat Lenehan might bethe runaway winner.

SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD: I’m sure there are many deserving candidates for this award, but I don’t know all the players around the league well enough to narrow it down. I'm open to any suggestions.

Here's my column on Shabazz Napier going back to Charlestown High Friday night to get his number retired. His high school coach, Bridgeport product Steve Cassidy, tells us Napier's clutch, game-winning shot gene first germinated when he was a sophomore. And this column was in no way intended to resemble the one we did in December about Napier's clutchness dating back to his prep school days, either.

And here are a few notes and quotes from Gampel after UConn's dominating, 80-43 win over Houston.

Kevin Ollie:

"They ruined my New Year's, now we just ruined their Chinese New Year's."

We can pretty much stop right there, right? Pretty much the quote of the year right there. But we'll keep going:

(on shutting down TaShawn Thomas to four harmless points)

"They were clamping him from behind, forcing him to get it to the other side. And when he tried to get the ball again, we forced him to go left. We had four guys waiting for him. That's the kind of defense we want."

(on Phil Nolan, who had 10 points -- all in the first half -- and a team-high-tying seven rebounds):

"I think the dunk got him going in the beginning. That's what good point guards do -- Ryan (Boatright) was punching it, you get the big guys in it early, you get 'em a dunk, their whole world changes. Their energy goes up ... you take care of your bigs, especially when they're running like that, and the bigs will take care of you."

(on DeAndre Daniels sitting out)

"It was a little bit of both. DeAndre's a competitor, everybody saw that at The RAC when he came back in. He wanted to play. I listened to James Doran, he's a great athletic trainer. He was trying to get him right, but he just wasn't to the point where we thought he could be effective. We went with Niels (Giffey), give him another week to sit out, because we don't want it to linger. It's a high ankle sprain, so it was just precautionary ... Hopefully, he's ready for Cincinnati. If he's not ready, we've got enough in that locker room, no matter who's out."

"We've got a week off, and now we're going down to the best team in the American Conference, Cincinnati."

By the way, apparently Chinese New Year is on Friday.

Phil Nolan:



Shabazz Napier on needing Daniels back:

"It's super-important. DeAndre's the 'X' factor, he's the best player on our team. When he plays the way he's supposed to play, he makes it easier for everybody."

If it wasn't already obvious that UConn was in a completely different world than what it used to occupy in the Big East, well, that point was drilled home like a TaShawn Thomas dunk on Tuesday night.

Two games deep in the heart of Texas? A conference-opening game before a one-third filled arena? What's going on here, and why exactly is UConn stuck in this league, with no immediate escape to the ACC or Big Ten on the horizon?

The Huskies have some problems, no doubt, and we'll delve into those in the coming days. But their conference affiliation could be as big as any for the long-term success of this program.

Almost no change in my Top 25 ballot this week. Louisville and Villanova drop a bit after losing to ranked opponents on the road. Otherwise, the same 25 teams for me this week. UConn actually bumps up a spot, replacing Villanova at No. 12.

1. Arizona
2. Oklahoma State
3. Syracuse
4. Ohio State
5. Michigan State
6. Wisconsin
7. Duke
8. Louisville
9. Oregon
10. Wichita State
11. Iowa State
12. Connecticut
13. Florida
14. Kentucky
15. Villanova
16. Kansas
17. Gonzaga
18. Baylor
19. Memphis
20. San Diego State
21. North Carolina
22. Massachusetts
23. George Washington
24. Illinois
25. Toledo

And now, we embark upon the American Athletic Conference. "The American," as they're calling it. I'll be on a plane Monday at 6 a.m. down to Houston, and we'll be meeting with Kevin Ollie and some players at the team hotel tomorrow around 6:30 p.m. local time. The Huskies face Houston on New Year's Eve at 9 p.m. (8 p.m local) at Hofheinz Pavilion.

The Cougars are 8-5, with losses to Stanford, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, San Jose State and Louisiana (in OT). They haven't played since Dec. 21, a two-point win over crosstown rival Rice. They really haven't beaten anyone of any significance.

Houston is led by TaShawn Thomas, unquestionably one of the best players in the conference. The 6-foot-8, 240-pound junior forward is third in the AAC in scoring (17.4 ppg) and second in rebounding (9.3). He's shooting a whopping 64.8 percent from the floor (sixth in the nation), and is just the kind of big, physical forward that the Huskies could have real trouble stopping.

After Houston, UConn continues its Texas two-step in Dallas against SMU on Saturday. UConn (like me) won't fly home after the Houston game but will remain in Texas for the week. Classes are, after all, out of session.

The Mustangs are 10-2 and could be one of the surprise teams in the conference. Their losses came at Arkansas and against Virginia, and they have wins over Texas A&M and at Wyoming. And, of course, they are coached by Larry Brown.

The Huskies will do well to come out of this Texas tour 2-0 in league play. There would be no shame in a split: any road game is tough to win in college basketball, and while neither of these teams are powerhouses, both have enough weapons to beat UConn.

Don't know about you, but I'm kind of looking forward to this new league. New teams, new cities. No, it's not a great league, though it does have three Top 25 teams in Louisville, UConn and Memphis. A few other decent squads, as well. But it's time to move on. The days of trips to the Carrier Dome and the Joyce Center and the Pete, or visits from Georgetown, Villanova, even PC, are over, and a new -- very different -- adventure is about to unfold.

I shed a tear as the final buzzer sounded on UConn's Big East career last March 9 at Gampel against Providence. Not because I grew up a UConn fan (I didn't) or that I'm even a fan of any particular team right now (I'm not), but just because such a beautiful thing, the Big East, was gone forever, blown up for ... well, we all know the reasons.

But it's over, and it's time to move on. UConn begins a new phase in Texas this week, and we need to get on board with it, because we're never going back to those glorious days of the Big East.