American announces women’s basketball format

It’s not as big of a change as the one the Owls faced a year ago with their move to a new conference, but the Owls’ second year in the American Athletic Conference will feature a few differences.

The American announced its scheduling model for the next two seasons, along with an 11-team conference championship bracket due to the additions of East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa Universities.

Each team will play an 18-game conference schedule, facing eight of ten opponents twice in home and home action, and another two once each. One of those single conference matchups in 2014-15 is guaranteed to be at home.

The complete schedule for the 2014-15 season won’t be released until August, but Temple will play every team in the conference twice with the exception of East Carolina and Tulsa. Temple will host East Carolina, so the Owls will have to go on the road to play Tulsa.

Temple, as well as the rest of the American teams, will have the same home and home opponents scheduled for the 2015-16 season, while the single-game opponents will switch sites, meaning Temple will travel to East Carolina and then play Tulsa at home after this upcoming season.

All 11 teams will play in the conference tournament at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. The tournament will be played March 6-9.

Games between the No. 9 and No. 8 seeds, the No. 10 and No. 7 seeds, and the No. 11 and No. 6 seeds will get things started on the sixth. The winners of each game will then play against the top three seeds, who get automatic byes into the quarterfinal round on Saturday. The No. 5 and No. 4 seeds will also face-off on Saturday.

Temple had a turbulent 2013-14 campaign, finishing 14-16 in the regular season, then bowing out with an early quarterfinal exit in the conference tournament via a 72-44 loss to the No. 3 seeded South Florida.

-Nick Tricome