C-USA teams look to take revenge on weakend Tigers

TULSA, Okla. — The irony to Tuesday's open practices at the men's Conference USA Tournament came in the discussions afterward.

Each coach openly spoke about how wide open this thing really is.

"I think every team in this league has had a good night or two and is capable (of winning)," said Rice coach Ben Braun. "There's no team in this league that you can go to sleep on."

"I think this is the deepest the league has been with a number of quality teams," said UCF coach Kirk Speraw. "I think you have to give credit to UTEP that they went through with only one loss. I thought the winner of this league would have four losses.

"But I do think that there's been an awful lot of close games throughout the year, and I think anything can happen here this week."

"I think there's more parity in the league now," said SMU coach Matt Doherty. "And a lot of teams think they can win this thing."

The familiar banter is a direct relation to who's missing this week.

No longer will the C-USA Tournament sideline be decorated with the slick style of John Calipari.

The former Memphis coach left for Kentucky in the offseason, leaving four consecutive C-USA Tournament championships behind him.

The Tigers will be here to try to make it a five-peat but suddenly don't look as big and bad as they once did.

For first time since 2005, Memphis won't be a No. 1 seed. 

And for the first time since 2004, the Tigers won't have the advantage of playing in their backyard.

"We always joked that (the C-USA Tournament) was the Memphis Invitational," Doherty said. "One, it was in Memphis. Two, Memphis was light-years ahead of everybody else."

The recent Tiger dominance has been highlighted by big-time performances from future NBA players.

In 2006, it was Rodney Carney who took over.

A year later, it was Chris Douglas-Roberts' turn.

Then came Derrick Rose in '08 and Tyreke Evans in '09.

This year, there are future pros here, but not all of them will be wearing Memphis blue.

Fourth-seeded Marshall has Hassan Whiteside, the nation's leading shot blocker. Seventh-seeded Houston has Aubrey Coleman, the nation's leading scorer. Third-seeded UAB has Elijah Milsap, an All-C-USA First Team member who draws comparisons to his brother Paul, a forward for the Utah Jazz.

And the talent doesn't stop there.

"(Tulsa's) Ben Uzoh can get hot," Doherty said. "A guy that I think will have some motivation in this tournament is (UTEP's) Derek Caracter. He was picked Second Team (All-C-USA) and I thought he was a First Team player.

"So he might take a little added incentive saying, ‘You know what? I'm not only going to want to win this tournament, I'm going to get MVP to show people that I should have been First Team."

Caracter's first-seeded Miners, winners of 14 straight, appear to be the tournament's favorite and that suits Doherty just fine.

UTEP is not Memphis.

"Memphis is still one of the best teams in the league — no doubt," Doherty said. "But I think teams have caught up a little bit."

Andrew Ramspacher can be contacted at ramspacher@marshall.edu.