Article on CUSA basketball

MeanGreen61 · January 10, 2006

HATTIESBURG — The revamped Conference USA men's basketball lineup has lost a lot of its punch and at least one coach isn't very happy about it.

"The bottom guys have to catch up," said Memphis' John Calipari, whose Tigers are 13-2 and ranked fifth in The Associated Press Top 25 poll.

"I think if you look at it, there is a real commitment to football in our league, but I'm not sure the commitment to basketball is there at all our schools, and this is a league that was put together for basketball. That commitment needs to be there."

FULL ARTICLE

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll...347/1266/SPORTS

MeanGreen61 · January 10, 2006

Discussion thread on the CUSA board.

http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/cusa/phpbb/v...pic.php?t=34366

Post by Eaststang (Knocking the WAC?)

First, have any of you considered what recruiting was like for SMU, Tulsa, UTEP and Rice and trying to sell recruits to playing in Boise, Reno, San Jose, and Fresno. No real star programs there. Now we're in CUSA, and in CUSA to compete everyone has to get better. I recall when I was a freshman at SMU, SWC basketball resembled the WWE or UFC. Then, Houston joined the SWC with its history of basketball strength, and suddenly UT, TT, SMU, Arkansas, discovered they had to step it up to compete in basketball. And the conference became a strong basketball conference with the UH Phi Slamma Jamma teams, the Sidney Moncrief Arkansas teams, and some strong SMU, Texas and Texas Tech teams. In other words, competition within the conference will improve all of teams in the conference.