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Five things to watch in ‘08-09 8/18/08

espn.go.com

By Jeff Shelman
Special to ESPN.com

dozier.jpg• Will Memphis continue to dominate?
When Conference USA went from being the league that featured Louisville, Marquette, Cincinnati and Memphis to being what it is today, C-USA has been the Tigers and everybody else. In the three seasons since the change, Memphis has gone 45-1 in league play and has won 33 consecutive regular-season C-USA games. Add in the C-USA tournament and Memphis has gone 54-1 against the rest of the league and its winning streak is at 42. The last time John Calipari’s team lost to a C-USA opponent was March 2, 2006 at UAB. Will it continue? With Derrick Rose, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Joey Dorsey all gone, the Tigers aren’t going to be quite as dominant as they were last season. Does that mean that UAB, Tulsa, Southern Miss, UTEP, Houston and the rest of the conference has a chance? The Tigers still have the most talent in the conference, but the gap isn’t what it once was.

• A multibid league?
In three years of the current conference alignment, Conference USA has earned exactly four NCAA tournament berths. Other than UAB’s at-large berth in 2006, C-USA has been limited to only Memphis’ three automatic berths. Last season, only four teams ended the regular season in the top 100 in the RPI. East Carolina, SMU and Rice all had sub-250 RPIs. Last season, only Memphis had a victory over a top 50 RPI team and the other 11 were a combined 0-18 vs. the RPI top 50 and a combined 7-32 against the top 100. If Conference USA is going to be more than simply the Tigers and everybody else, the other 11 schools are going to have to win some games of note. Tulsa, for example, has games this season against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and possibly Illinois. UTEP could potentially play two teams from the top six conferences at the Anaheim Classic. If C-USA teams can beat some quality opponents that will help the league’s chances come March.

• Can Tulsa build on the CBI?
There was some scoffing in the college basketball world when the College Basketball Invitational was announced. After all, if the NCAA tournament has the best 65 teams in the country and the NIT grabs the next 32, did there really need to be a tournament to determine just who was No. 98? Well, the CBI turned out to be a good thing for Tulsa. The Golden Hurricane won the best-of-three final against Bradley. Combine the CBI with a surprise run to the championship game of the C- USA tournament and a strong finish to the regular season, and Doug Wojcik’s team went 15-4 after Feb. 6. How that will impact the 2008-09 season is unclear, but the Golden Hurricane players certainly learned more about what it takes to win.

• A continuing trend
Coincidence or not, Conference USA seems to be a place where coaches get another chance. There’s former Texas coach Tom Penders at Houston, former Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy at Southern Miss., former North Carolina coach Matt Doherty at SMU and former Indiana coach Mike Davis at UAB. Now there’s one more coach to add to that list. Less than two weeks after being fired at California, Ben Braun was hired at Rice. Braun, who previously led Cal and Eastern Michigan to the NCAA tournament, is one of only 17 active coaches with more than 500 victories. The Golden Bears were only 6-12 in Pac-10 play each of the past two seasons.

• Thirty for the record
Entering their senior seasons, the Memphis duo of Robert Dozier and Antonio Anderson has known little other than winning. In three seasons, the Tigers have won 104 games. If Memphis can win another 30 games this season — certainly a good possibility — the Tigers will have won more games in a four-year span than any team in NCAA history. Duke currently holds the record with 133 victories from 1998-2001. Memphis’ 104 victories put the Tigers in a tie with Kentucky (1996-98) for the most wins in a three-year period. If Memphis is going to be a contender again for a deep tournament run, Dozier and Anderson are going to have to assert themselves offensively. Both have shown signs of being scorers and both were key parts in last season’s success, but neither player averaged double figures in scoring.

Posted by Tug | Filed under Men's Basketball