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Steve Logan and the Bearcats would like to make it back to the Top 25 this season.
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While Rick Pitino is currently all the rage, remember that Cincinnati has either won or shared the C-USA regular season title in all six years of the league's existence.
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"I think December killed us as a league. And that's why our RPI was down. I learned this from being in the ACC: if you have a bad December, then when you play each other, you're not gonna boost your own RPIs, because you've lost too many non-conference games. So you've got to have a good December, because that sets the level of your RPI."
-- DePaul's Pat Kennedy on the league's poor RPI last season.
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By Stan Olson, Special to CNNSI.com
Conference USA seems to be doing its best to live up to its name, and
now its membership -- which increased from 12 schools to 14 this
year -- stretches from eastern North Carolina to the middle of Texas, from the
Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes.
The additions of TCU and East Carolina were primarily
made to push C-USA closer to the mandatory 12 football teams needed to stage
a league championship game, but not everyone in the family is happy about
it.
Basketball was the engine that drove C-USA's development, and now some
of its hoops people feel like it is being neglected. Hardly anyone is happy
with the new basketball schedule, which has schools playing their league
rivals twice, once or not at all in a given year, depending on the
circumstances.
"We don't play UAB at all this year; we don't play TCU at all, we don't
play somebody else [Tulane]," says Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins. "It's hard
to get the rivalries going when you're not playing."
The 16-game league schedule works like this: There are two seven-team
divisions, American and National. Each team will play its division rivals at
home and away, accounting for 12 games. Two of the four crossover games will
be scheduled in a systematic rotation, and the other two will be determined
by the league office, which will use factors such as TV exposure, geography
and rivalry-building in making its decisions.
On the court, the league should be considerably improved over last
year's version, which crashed in the national rankings and RPI after a
dismal December that saw C-USA members play lots of highly ranked foes and
lose to practically all of them. That resulted in just two NCAA tournament
bids, those falling to league tournament champion Charlotte and Cincinnati.
The conference should get a lot of attention; Louisville -- at a cost
of $2 million annually -- landed Rick Pitino, a move that gives C-USA arguably
the highest-profile bunch of coaches in the land. Think about it; Cincinnati
has Huggins, Memphis has John Calipari and TCU has Billy Tubbs. All four
have taken teams to the Final Four.
C-USA is young -- there were key defections to the NBA by Charlotte's
Rodney White, the league's top freshman, and several others. But there is
talent on hand. Calipari and Pitino saw that their clubs finished with Top
10 recruiting classes, and a number of other C-USA schools cracked the Top
50.
Memphis, though, is absolutely loaded, led by 6-10 all-conference
forward Kelly Wise and highly rated freshman guard Dajuan Wagner, who hasn't
disappointed in preseason practice. Expect the Tigers, who reached the NIT
semis last season, to win the league and then dance long into the postseason
night.
Cincinnati is wary of the inside game which disappointed so dramatically
last year, but Player of the Year Steve Logan returns to run the show, and
there's plenty of talent around. Charlotte could have C-USA's best perimeter
game, but needs to find some depth inside to push the top teams. And South
Florida returns Altron Jackson and B.B. Waldon, first and second-team
all-conference performers, respectively.
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A 6-4 sophomore swing man at Marquette, Dwayne Wade dominated the
Golden Eagles' practices last year but could not compete in games because of
academics.
Expect the high-flying Wade to break loose this season, and hope
your team can find someone capable of guarding him.
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HOT: Memphis F Chris Massie
This 6-8, 270-pound powerhouse juco transfer
should have an immediate impact.
NOT: USF G B.B. Waldon
The senior is one of the league's most talented players, but hasn't progressed much since his sophomore year.
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Give this one to the league, which decided to add East Carolina and TCU
for football impact and seemed to forget all about the dilution and
overextension of its basketball.
And, as one coach said this week,
"Basketball is the flagship of Conference USA."
The C-USA folks are not
acting like it.
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 Charlotte G Jobey Thomas
A third-team all-conference pick a year ago, he was voted to the preseason first team by league coaches. Could be the hardest worker in the league.
Tulane coach Shawn Finney
He kept his first Green Wave team from quitting. With just seven scholarship players, it finished 9-21 but played Marquette within five points in the C-USA tournament.
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In a key non-conference matchup on Dec. 29, Louisville travels to Kentucky. Need we say more?
In conference play, Charlotte will host Cincinnati on Feb. 6 in what is always a war between the American Division rivals. The following day, Memphis goes to South Florida in a game that will be equally important in establishing the National Division hierarchy.
Finally, March 3 will mark the first league meeting of Calipari and Pitino as Memphis visits Louisville.
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DePaul lost two key underclassmen to the NBA, but Kennedy says this is
the best group of guys he's had from one to 12. Pay particular attention to
Blue Demons' pure shooter Drake Diener. ... The league finished with no members
of the AP Top 25 for the first time last season. ... South Florida's
Jackson was the nation's top scoring sixth man (18.9) for the second
straight year. ... Of the 14 C-USA coaches, only Tulane's Finney has a losing
career record (9-21). ... In inter-divisional play, the American holds a
whopping 98-46 edge. ... Asked about feeling pressure to repeat as league
player of the year, Cincy guard Logan said, "I don't feel any
pressure. I have some memories from last season that I'll never forget, but
this will all be new." ... Louisville's home attendance has ranked in the top
five nationally for 19 straight years.
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