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Updated Conference RPI

By asalom

 

It was a wild and crazy week in Conference USA as we saw UCF and Marshall continue to slide, Memphis rebound, and teams like Houston and Tulsa work their way up the standings. In a way, the conference is hurting right now. A couple of weeks ago we had two teams in the top 25 and were on way to maybe getting more in there. Now both teams have fallen from national ranking (assuming UCF drops out after their second straight loss), and most teams in conference are just beating up on each other. On the other hand, the conference continues to improve every week in the RPI rankings. Conference USA has now jumped up to the 8th best conference (realtimerpi.com) in the nation, behind the power 6 conferences, and the MWC. Granted, we now only have one team in the top 50 RPI, but we've got a handful more who are ready to crack that, and a few who are ready to jump inside the top 100. Here's where Conference USA stands in this week's RPI. 

 

  1. UCF                          RPI     21
  2. Southern Miss                    53
  3. UAB                                      54
  4. Marshall                              58
  5. UTEP                                   70
  6. Memphis                             77
  7. Tulsa                                  110
  8. ECU                                    164
  9. Houston                             174
  10. Rice                                    192
  11. Tulane                                230
  12. SMU                                    280
The trend here is that the top half is sliding a bit, while the bottom half is getting better. Its not exactly the best thing right now for C-USA, but what is good is that, perhaps, by the end of the season, we might not have a single team outside the top 250, we may have 8 or 9 teams in the top 100, and we may have 5 or 6 in the top 50. If that happens, C-USA will definitely get 3-4 teams in the tournament. I'm not a fan of cannibalizing our league, but that may be exactly what it needs. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.