excerpt:
...Middle Tennessee enters with a
No. 22 national ranking, winners of 24 of their last 25 games after a
1-3 start and as a clear favorite.
Southern Miss, UTEP,
Tulane and East Carolina are a combined 89-18, Old Dominion has won its
last five games and Florida International brings a two-time All-American
in Jerica Coley, the nation's second-leading scorer. If she had scored
one more point this season she'd come in as the national leader.
"The conference is extremely talented, very competitive," UTEP coach
Keitha Adams said. "Middle has shown with only having one loss they are
extremely consistent, a very good team. Southern Miss is putting up big
points, they can put a lot of points on the board. Every game we've
played has been extremely competitive."
For the most part, C-USA became a little weaker at least in the short
term with the recent realignments that saw it lose teams to the
American Athletic Conference while picking up programs from the Sun
Belt. Women's basketball is the exception, particularly this year with
two of the top five seeds in this tournament, East Carolina and Tulane,
in their final year in the league.
Old Dominion and Louisiana Tech have won national championships and
Middle Tennessee is one of four teams nationally that has won a
regular-season conference title in six consecutive years.
Here's the best explanation of how deep the conference is:
Charlotte's Ny Hammonds, who two weeks ago became the sixth player in
NCAA history to have consecutive triple-doubles, didn't make the
eight-player all-league first team.
Two players who did make that team, Rice's Jessica Kuster and Middle
Tennessee's Ebony Rowe, are the only players in the nation to average
double-doubles for four consecutive seasons.
Perhaps unfairly, C-USA is a one-bid league for the NCAA tournament unless MTSU, who is a lock, gets upset.
That could easily happen. Only four times in a tournament that dates
back to 1996 has the No. 1 seed won and it's only happened twice in the
last seven years.....
No. 22 Middle Tennessee is team to beat
...Middle Tennessee enters with a
No. 22 national ranking, winners of 24 of their last 25 games after a
1-3 start and as a clear favorite.
Southern Miss, UTEP,
Tulane and East Carolina are a combined 89-18, Old Dominion has won its
last five games and Florida International brings a two-time All-American
in Jerica Coley, the nation's second-leading scorer. If she had scored
one more point this season she'd come in as the national leader.
"The conference is extremely talented, very competitive," UTEP coach
Keitha Adams said. "Middle has shown with only having one loss they are
extremely consistent, a very good team. Southern Miss is putting up big
points, they can put a lot of points on the board. Every game we've
played has been extremely competitive."
For the most part, C-USA became a little weaker at least in the short
term with the recent realignments that saw it lose teams to the
American Athletic Conference while picking up programs from the Sun
Belt. Women's basketball is the exception, particularly this year with
two of the top five seeds in this tournament, East Carolina and Tulane,
in their final year in the league.
Old Dominion and Louisiana Tech have won national championships and
Middle Tennessee is one of four teams nationally that has won a
regular-season conference title in six consecutive years.
Here's the best explanation of how deep the conference is:
Charlotte's Ny Hammonds, who two weeks ago became the sixth player in
NCAA history to have consecutive triple-doubles, didn't make the
eight-player all-league first team.
Two players who did make that team, Rice's Jessica Kuster and Middle
Tennessee's Ebony Rowe, are the only players in the nation to average
double-doubles for four consecutive seasons.
Perhaps unfairly, C-USA is a one-bid league for the NCAA tournament unless MTSU, who is a lock, gets upset.
That could easily happen. Only four times in a tournament that dates
back to 1996 has the No. 1 seed won and it's only happened twice in the
last seven years.....
No. 22 Middle Tennessee is team to beat
