Since the shake-up of Conference USA last season, there have been many words used to describe the loss of DePaul, Marquette, Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida to the Big East Conference and Charlotte and St. Louis heading to the Atlantic 10.
Words like raided, burglarized and thieved are a few. And with C-USA's decision to concentrate on football instead of basketball, this season's new-look C-USA will be a shadow of its former self.
With the loss of every former C-USA league winner, Memphis is the clear pick to win the conference this season. The U of M's non-conference success and national ranking have echoed in the C-USA's preseason coaches poll, which picked Memphis as the unanimous champions.
The U of M's 77-67 escape Wednesday at East Carolina, however, may be a clear sign that conference play will be no cakewalk this year despite the loss of Cincinnati and Louisville.
"(In) The last 10 years there have only been five teams to go through league play and win every game," said John Calipari, U of M head coach. "Every game you play on the road is hard. We know this isn't going to be easy."
Calipari said this season's conference expectations are a lot like those in his years at UMass.
"When I was in the Atlantic 10, I had the No. 1 team in the country and we never won every game in the league," Calipari said. "One year we had six overtime games and that league was only a little better than ours this year."
Despite agreement among coaches in C-USA that the league is competitive, C-USA is only expected to receive two or possibly three NCAA Tournament bids.
One of the teams working towards an NCAA birth and a C-USA championship is UAB.
Head coach Mike Anderson's system of "the fastest 40 minutes in basketball" will help the Blazers overwhelm new teams, untested by the continuous full court press, and help UAB overcome the loss of players to graduation.
"We have a lot of firsts in C-USA this year," Anderson said. "It's kind of refreshing because you never know how it's going to go with the teams you haven't played before."
Refreshing or not, the loss of last season's leading scorer Donell Taylor and his twin brother Ronell will take away an average of 27 points and 8 rebounds a game from last year's 22-11 squad.
UAB Senior and Memphis-native Marvett McDonald should be a key contributor in conference play this season. However, the recent loss of senior forward Demario Eddins is a significant loss that will haunt the Blazers all season long.
UAB will take on The U of M in a home-and-home series opening in Memphis Jan. 26 and ending in Birmingham, on March 2.
Another expected contender for the C-USA title is the Houston Cougars under second-year coach Tom Penders.
"I feel we are going to have three or four teams at the top of C-USA who can compete with anyone," Penders said. "But we have a lot of schools at the bottom who are rebuilding."
Houston has matched last season's non-conference win total with nine that include wins over ranked teams LSU and Arizona.
Despite these quality wins, Houston has had a Jekyll and Hyde season with several disappointing losses including Virginia Commonwealth, South Alabama and their C-USA-opener to Rice.
Houston will conclude its C-USA regular season play at Memphis on March 4.
East Carolina and UTEP are also expected to be competitive this season with ECU boasting one of the most difficult home environments in the conference along with UTEP's NCAA tournament berth last season.
One of the big problems in this season's C-USA lineup is the RPI-killing bottom feeders of the conference.
Southern Miss, Tulsa, UCF, Tulane, SMU and Rice all seem to be declaring this a season of rebuilding. The collective group is 43-53 against less than stellar opponents and has brought the C-USA conference RPI ranking to 17th out of 32 conferences.
"Our measuring stick for our team is not going to be wins and losses," said Larry Eustachy, USM head coach. "It is going to be player and team improvement. We are just going to work hard."
