Tulane Men Entertain UAB, Looking to go 4-0 in AAC Play
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It's the best start by the Tulane men's basketball team in the Ron Hunter era. The Green Wave have opened the season at 12-4, but most importantly 3-0 in American Conference play. None of Hunter's previous six Tulane teams have come close to this success, including his 2022-23 squad that piled up 20-wins. Tonight, the Wave try to get their fourth straight AAC victory to open the conference slate, something not seen since the Perry Clark days when the Green Wave opened with seven straight Conference USA wins in the '96-'97 season.
Fresh off a 33-point skunking of Texas-San Antonio this past weekend, Tulane comes back home to entertain Alabama-Birmingham. The Blazers are 11-6 for the year, 2-2 in the American.
"We've been able to perform all year because of our defense," Hunter explained. "Our offense is what was suffering. The month of December may be the worst I've seen a team shoot."
The Green Wave hit only 26% of their three-pointers in those seven games to end 2025.
"The same shots we're making now are the same shots we were missing earlier," Hunter elaborated. "I knew we weren't (that) poor of a three point shooting team. We made some tweaks in our offense. We get the ball reversed a little bit more and be a little more patient."
Though a small sampling for January, Tulane is hitting beyond the arc at a much healthier 42%.
"Our offense hasn't caught up yet," Hunter told us, "but it's starting to catch up to our defense."
Part of that resurgence by the Tulane offense is the turnaround of senior guard Asher Woods.
"As I call it, second semester Asher," Hunter said, laughing. "First semester Asher, you would have thought he was the new guy (on the court)." Since the first of 2026, Woods has hit 12-of-22 of his shots from the field for a sizzling 55%, compared to 42% of his December field goal attempts. "He's back, shooting at that All-Conference level right now. It helps that he's a veteran."
The TU defense will need to be on its toes against UAB, who is third in the American in points per game, averaging 83.5-points a contest. Hunter knows games in Fogelman are essentiallly must wins.
"If you lose a home game, you've got to go find two road games to win," Hunter said. "This is an important home stand right now." The Wave host UAB tonight, then North Texas on Sunday afternoon. The North Texas game has moved to a 4:00 p.m. tipoff to accommodate the ESPN2 TV broadcast. "(But we cannot) make too big a deal of it. Just relax, play, and let our defense take care of it. If our defense continues to do for us what it's been doing since November, we'll be fine."
Tipoff in Fogelman Arena is set for 6:30 tonight.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.