The middle of the pack isn't giving up much ground as Conference USA continues to improve its collective record against weak non-conference opponents. That said, here's my breakdown of C-USA in week 6:
12. Rice (2-5; W5 - 12th) - The Rice Owls aren't looking any better. This week, they added a home loss to Drexel and an 8 point victory over Houston Baptist to their resume. On the bright side, they doubled their season win total, so that's pretty legit... Nothing to see here. Moving right along...
11. UAB (4-5; W5 - 9th) - UAB's stock continues to drop. A blowout defeat against UNC is not a season ender, but UAB failed to rebound four days later when they suffered another blowout loss against Middle Tennessee State. At this point, UAB's dragon lacks teeth, and it's starting to show as their schedule gets tougher.
10. Tulsa (5-3; W5 - 11th) - Tulsa gets a slight bump since they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. They went 1-1 this week. Their blowout victory against Missouri State was nice, but they took a loss against a pretty solid Wichita State Shockers team. We'll see what Tulsa has down the road, but they haven't shown much fight thus far, to be honest.
9. UTEP (2-4; W5 - 8th) - UTEP was off this week, but Houston is starting to look like better squad after adding a few nice wins. The Miners will take on Idaho State this week, so don't expect them to post a big time success immediately. They will take a shot at both ranked UNLV and Oregon after that, so we'll watch the Miners for later this month. We won't really know how good UTEP is until we get into conference play. Their non-conference schedule was way tougher than most teams in C-USA; that said, they didn't capitalize on any upset opportunities. Lot of questions left here.
8. Houston (6-2; W5 - 10th) - They finished this week 1-1. They took a loss against Texas A&M, but a win against TCU makes their resume look a little bit brighter. Houston's record is good, but the team still has some work to do to show its strength. Ken Pom rates their schedule strength as the second easiest in basketball so far. Not good.
7. Marshall (5-4; W5 - 4th) - Marshall's early season strength is looking more like a mirage. They took a beating against Charlotte and narrowly pulled out a 3 point win against a mediocre UNC-Wilmington team this week. Even some of their early successes look a little less valuable at this point. They beat Villanova early, but so did everyone else now. Two overtimes to beat a bad Hofstra team that SMU just rocked also doesn't do much for me. I'm thinking Marshall's stock is falling.
6. East Carolina (6-1; W5 - 7th) - East Carolina is up to 6-1. Even Ken Pomeroy's computer sees Tulane and East Carolina in a dead heat, so I am going to give my Green Wave the benefit of the doubt here. ECU has some spark; they are nationally in the top 30 for scoring. They have a week off while they prepare for an in-state game against their enemies at Chapel Hill.
5. Tulane (7-2; W5 - 6th) - Tulane went 2-0 this week with solid wins over Navy and Nicholls St. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Neither Navy nor Nicholls St. had much to contend with. BUT. Tulane is still perfect on their home court. So there's that. At any rate, Tulane has some cupcakes on the schedule before a tough road matchup at Alabama on Dec. 30. That game will give us a better sense of where Tulane is in the grand scheme of things.
4. Southern Mississippi (6-2; W5 - 2nd) - I'm only going to drop the Golden Eagles a couple spots despite going 0-2 this week. Their loss against a lame New Mexico State team was pretty disappointing. That said, they rebounded and stayed close with #8 Arizona until the final minutes while on the road. They kept it interesting, and that's pretty good for Conference USA.
3. Southern Methodist (8-1; W5 - 5th) - The Mustangs like to win. Larry Brown's team improves to 8-1 after a beatdown victory at Hofstra and another victory against Utah. Not too shabby. There's not much to say about a relatively bland offense and defense, but the Mustangs have clicked so far. They'll keep racking up non-conference wins against a Mickey Mouse schedule while they're at it. Good stuff.
2. UCF (4-2; W5 - 3rd) - The Golden Knights added one more win in a blowout against a nobody Florida Tech team. So there. Until SMU plays someone or UCF decides to throw a wrench into their season, I don't think there will be much movement at the top.
1. Memphis (5-2; W5 - 1st) - Memphis wrecked a fairly solid Ohio Bobcats squad in a game that finally made the Tigers look like a team that deserved to Battle For Atlantis. Or Battle 4 Atlantis. Or #Battle4Atlantis. Or whatever the stupid reality show name tournament they faltered in early this season was called. So the Tigers have that going for them. On the 15th, they will take on a stellar Louisville team though. We'll see how that goes.
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