Orlando, Fla. — Postseason play brought out the beast in Rodney Purvis last season.

Purvis averaged a team-best 17.5 points during four American Athletic Conference tournament games, including a season-high 29 in a championship game loss to Southern Methodist University.

A repeat performance would certainly make life much easier for UConn to achieve its quest of winning its first American Athletic Conference tournament championship.

"I did pretty well," Purvis said after practice Thursday at Rollins College. "But we're just trying to get wins."

The fifth-seeded Huskies open play against No. 4 Cincinnati at 2 p.m. Friday in quarterfinal action. They could definitely use a big performance from Purvis, or anybody else for that matter.

"That's what we need," UConn coach Kevin Ollie said. "Everybody needs to step up. Rodney can't do it by himself because we didn't win last year's tournament. So we're going to need everybody to step up and we're going to need everybody to play well and everybody to play their role.

"And just play hard, that's all I want these guys to do."

Purvis has a different role this season, serving as the sixth man in the last 15 games after starting the first 16.

He's been in a shooting slump in the last three games, converting just eight of 26 from the field, or 31 percent, while averaging 7.3 points.

That will all be forgotten if Purvis delivers today.

Repeat winners

Two of the AAC's major individual awards went to a pair of repeat winners during a ceremony at the Amway Center on Thursday.

SMU senior Nic Moore won his second player of the year honor. The Mustangs are ineligible to play in postseason, so Moore wasn't there to accept the award. He was on a spring break vacation.

"Nic has had a wonderful career and he'll go on and place elsewhere," AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said. "We're very proud of him. He's a very worthy recipient."

Temple's Fran Dunphy earned the coach of the year after leading the Owls (20-10, 14-4) to the regular-season title. The Owls were picked to place sixth in the preseason poll.

His Owls may need to win a few games to qualify for the NCAA tournament.

"We finished in first place and the reality is, who knows who is going to win this tournament four days from now," Dunphy said. "So many great teams are able to be here this week, anybody can win this tournament. That's how competitive this league is. So we were fortunate to finish where we did."

Dedric Lawson of Memphis was named the AAC rookie of the year while Tulsa's Shaquille Harrison won the scholar-athlete award.

Ready to run

UConn favors a track meet over a tractor pull when it comes to style of play.

Trouble is, Cincinnati makes it extremely difficult for an opponent to crank up the running game. The Huskies have hit the 60-point mark only twice in the last nine meetings.

"We'd rather run than sit back and play against a matchup zone," Ollie said. "To run, you have to rebound and you've got to take care of the basketball."

Even a handful of fast break baskets will help the Huskies, who had only a combined 23 turnovers in the two regular-season meetings and still lost both.

News and notes

Ollie said the Huskies missed 32 layups in two games versus Cincinnati this season. ... Right down the road from the Alfond Sports Center, where UConn practiced, is a street called Ollie Avenue. "I didn't know that," said Ollie when told. "That's pretty good." ... Ten of the last 11 games in the series have been decided by single digits. UConn is 5-6 during that stretch.

g.keefe@theday.com