For the first time, Tulsa is co-champion of the regular American Athletic conference season with Houston and Cincinnati.

It is the first conference championship for Tulsa since 2013-14 when the Hurricane won the Conference USA Championship.

The Golden Hurricane will begin a quest to win the AAC Championship Tournament on Friday when No. 3 seeded Tulsa will play the Thursday’s winner between No. 6 Memphis and No. 11 East Carolina.

The Golden Hurricane play at 8:30 p.m. Friday in Fort Worth. Should TU win on Friday, they would play the winner of the game between Houston and the SMU/Temple winner (Thursday).

Tulsa beat East Carolina 65-49 on January 15 and 70-56 on February 12. The Golden Hurricane topped Wichita State 54-51 on February 1 and lost to the Shockers on last Sunday.

Tulsa had a shot at being alone in first place at the end of the regular season but fell to Wichita State, 57-79, Sunday in Wichita.

“I thought we didn’t execute offensively at all,” said Tulsa coach Frank Haith.  “We took a lot of tough shots and we played into their hands.”

TU’s Martins Igbanu led Tulsa with 20 points and Jeriah Horne added 15 points. WSU shot 47.4% from the field and connected on 11-of-28 three-pointers. For the second game in a row, freshman Josh Earley started for the Hurricane in place of the injured Emmanuel Ugboh.

“We’ve been in tough arenas and we played some tough teams,” Haith said.

Tulsa ends the regular season with a record of 21-10 and 13-5 in conference play, while the Shockers move to 23-8 and 11-7 in AAC play. The 21 overall wins and 13 conference victories are the most by a Hurricane team since the 2014-15 season when it went 24-11 and 14-4.

TU’s hopes for an NCAA bid may ride on winning the tournament. Tulsa hasn’t won an NCAA game since 2003 and have only made one appearance since joining the American Athletic Conference in 2015.

“This team has been resilient all year long,” Haith said. “We’ve had tough moments, tough games and we’ve bounced back.

“We’ll have to bounce back next week in the tournament and continue our run and our place in the post season. I think this team is going to do what we need to do to get out there and play next week.”

Igbanu is now tied with Dick Courter at 20th in school history for rebounds with 624. Igbanu is also 21st all-time in scoring for Tulsa with 1,310 points. He trails Jarius Glenn (1,329) by 19 for 20th all-time.

Tulsa is 4-10 this season when trailing at the half. Three of the four wins have come in conference play. The Hurricane was down by 3 at home to Houston, 6 at home to Wichita State and 3 at home against Tulane. In all 10 of the Hurricane losses, the opposing team has shot greater that 40.3% from the field. In 9 of the 10 losses, teams have made 9 or more three-pointers.