GAME NOTES: The UCF Knights and East Carolina Pirates will kick off the 2015 American Athletic Conference Tournament on Thursday afternoon at XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

In their first season in the AAC, the Pirates won only a third of their conference tilts, going 6-12 to finish eighth in the standings. UCF is the No. 9 seed after losing four straight to end the regular season, dropping the team to just 5-13 in league play.

East Carolina won both meetings against UCF this season. After pasting the Knights by 18 at home on Feb. 7, the Pirates pulled out a 71-66 win in Orlando less than two weeks ago.

Thursday's winner advances to the quarterfinals to take on top-seeded SMU on Friday afternoon.

These two teams were former rivals Conference USA, and split two previous meetings in the league tournament. UCF holds a 14-8 advantage in the all-time series.

UCF's offense is being led by a pair of freshmen in B.J. Taylor and Adonys Henriquez, and both made the AAC All-Rookie Team. Taylor is pacing the team with 12.5 ppg despite shooting just 36.8 percent from the field. He has also been in a slump of late, making just 8-of-41 from the field and scoring in double figures just once during the Knights' recent skid. Henriquez is a more efficient shooter (.419) and is putting up 10.6 ppg. Brandon Goodwin, another underclassman, has done a little bit of everything, as the sophomore leads the team in assists (120) and steals (36), and is averaging 10.2 ppg.

With such an inexperienced roster, the Knights are bound to struggle at the defensive end, and the numbers suggest as much, as they rank last in the conference in points against (71.4 ppg), field goal percentage defense (.456) and rebounding margin (-3.8 rpg).

ECU also has a prolific freshman scorer in B.J. Taylor, who despite never starting a game and only averaging 24.1 minutes, is tied with Terry Whisnant for the team lead at 12.5 ppg. Taylor is hitting on 45.4 percent of his shots and is second on the team in rebounds (4.0 rpg). Along with Taylor and Whisnant, Caleb White has shown he can light up the scoreboard as well. The sophomore combo guard has led the team in scoring in three of the past five games and is logging 12.2 ppg. Other than those three, however, the Pirates have no one else on the roster who is scoring more than six points a night. The team as a whole is near the bottom in the AAC in scoring (63.5 ppg).

The last time these teams met, the Pirates shot 57.1 percent from the floor and had four players score in double figures. White had 14 points, Tyson and Antonio Robinson scored 13 apiece and ECU pulled out its first, and only true, road win of the season. Whisnant contributed 11 points and five assists and hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with just over a minute to play in regulation.

This should be a toss-up as to which team will survive to play another day. With a meeting against a dangerous SMU team looming, it's likely to be rendered moot, but given their recent success, ECU gets the edge.