{"id":192905,"date":"2026-03-16T00:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T00:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192905\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T00:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T00:35:10","slug":"south-florida-wins-aac-to-clinch-first-tourney-spot-since-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/192905\/","title":{"rendered":"South Florida wins AAC to clinch first tourney spot since 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mar 15, 2026, 08:17 PM ET<\/p>\n

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Wes Enis<\/a> scored 19 points on Sunday to help top-seeded South Florida beat No. 2 seed Wichita State 70-55 to win the American Athletic Conference Tournament and clinch a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012.<\/p>\n

South Florida (25-8) has won 11 in a row and secured its first AAC Tournament crown. The Bulls have won back-to-back conference regular-season titles.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

Izaiyah Nelson<\/a> had 13 points, six rebound, three steals and two blocks for USF and Josh Omojafo<\/a> scored 10.<\/p>\n

CJ Brown<\/a> threw an alley-oop to Nelson for a dunk that made it 10-8 a little more than six minutes into the game and the Bulls led the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

Wichita State (22-11) twice in the second half trimmed its deficit to a point before Isaiah Jones<\/a> and Enis hit back-to-back 3s to spark a 14-4 spurt that gave South Florida a 59-45 lead with 6 1\/2 minutes to play.<\/p>\n

Dillon Battie<\/a> led the Shockers with 15 points and Will Berg<\/a> added 10 points, six rebounds and three blocks. Kenyon Giles<\/a>, the team’s leading scorer this season (19.7 per game), finished with five points on 2-of-11 shooting, 1 of 7 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

Wichita State had its seven-game win streak — which dated to a 66-58 home loss to the Bulls on Feb. 11 — snapped.<\/p>\n

South Florida got the No. 11 seed and plays Thursday against sixth-seeded Louisville in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mar 15, 2026, 08:17 PM ET BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Wes Enis scored 19 points on Sunday to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-192905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}