WKU Basketball: State of Conference USA-CUSA Men's Basketball Tournament Preview
Your comprehensive (relatively unbiased) Conference USA Men's Basketball Tournament Guide
Conference USA Men’s Basketball has been hotly contested this year. For most of the season, the entire conference has been bunched together within a couple of games of each other, mostly because no one seems to be able to win on the road. Three teams proved themselves capable of withstanding some of the pressures of a hostile environment in Sam Houston, Louisiana Tech, and Western Kentucky. Two of those three finished the season strong, and the other completely went sideways, losing all of its games since our State of Conference USA article posted on February 20 and nearly losing its opportunity for the three seed.Are they absolute locks? Those three finished as the top three, but who had WKU losing all four and La Tech losing at home and Sam Houston to establish itself as the legitimate alpha dog in CUSA’s regular season?
Since last we spoke on the subject, it was a three horse race, so to speak. Well, that has changed. La Tech and Sam Houston State are clearly the two best teams heading into the tournament. Neither is invincible, but they will get the lion’s share of the expectations. WKU will still probably be a third favorite, but the likes of Liberty, MTSU, and UTEP, all who have played good basketball of late are right there.
Jacksonville State is interesting solely because of the combination of Ray Harper and Kyky Tandy. FIU has battled injury but has played decent ball despite a poor record. New Mexico State feels like a team that’s lucky to get a six seed, but they are a pretty decent team, as well.
We’ll talk seedings, tournament structure, huge advantages certain teams and seeds have, overall national standings, you name it. We’ll touch on it here. So buckle up.
As promised, the regular season is over, and here is your Conference USA Tournament Preview
Conference USA History
Before we dive in to the State of CUSA… a quick history lesson.
Just a few short years ago…
That was what Conference USA looked like. You might recnognize several programs you’ve heard of. UTSA has had some good football teams lately. UAB had some great teams in the early 2000s and just recently had success under Andy Kennedy. FAU made the Final Four last year as a member of Conference USA. Several teams have won NCAA Tournament games in recent memory for CUSA. Heck, you might even be one of the three people in the entire world that a) know and b) care that Marshall won a national championship in men’s soccer a few years ago.
Well, last season, most of these teams were gone. Southern Miss, Old Dominion, and Marshall went to the Sun Belt a couple of years ago. Rice, North Texas, FAU, Charlotte, UTSA, and UAB all went to the AAC. That left Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, Louisiana Tech, Florida International, and UTEP (Texas-El Paso) looking for conference mates.
The Current Teams of CUSA
Joining WKU, MTSU, FIU, La Tech, and UTEP were upstart FBS Football program Jacksonville State, traditional FCS Football stalwart Sam Houston State, and independents New Mexico State and Liberty. This group of teams made an interesting mix in football, with some programs surprising (like Liberty to the Fiesta Bowl and NMSU making the championship game), and others underperforming (WKU, MTSU). In other sports, like baseball, Conference USA is extremely strong, especially with new additions coming in. Baseball-only Dallas Baptist brings a perennial contender for hosting a regional to CUSA, along with several programs new and old on the rise in recent years. Several women’s sports have been strengthened or at least bolstered by newcomers to replace key losses.
In men’s basketball, this mixture of teams has produced a very evenly matched, heavily homecourt dominated conference with surprises every week. Liberty and MTSU, preseason favorites, look like they will finish no higher than fourth and potentially as low as last place. Western Kentucky, La Tech, and SHSU look like the class of the league, and other schools have ultimately landed about where they were expected to be.
All told, Conference USA, despite some people predicting Armageddon, has settled into the middle of the pack for this year at 16th out of 32 conferences, something most realistic constituents of these programs should be ultimately ok with.
State of Conference USA: Completely up for Grabs
Heading into Conference USA Tournament, your guess is as good as mine for whoever comes out on top in Huntsville. It’s been such a weird year, where across all of college basketball, no team has been that great away from home. Some teams are elite and are looking like national title contenders, but everyone else just seems to Jekyll and Hyde it all through their seasons depending on the backdrop.
Sam Houston has clearly been CUSA’s best team once in CUSA play, but what about their non-conference, when they went sub-.500 against a schedule that was good but not elite? Liberty and La Tech played legitimate schedules and played well heading into CUSA play. Then Liberty completely fell off, ended up with a losing record in CUSA. WKU played a terrible non-conference schedule but entered conference play with only three total losses.
In Conference USA, homecourt really mattered. Well, now for tournament, we get to see who the good teams really are. But I’ll tell you this: If someone tells you they know who wins Saturday, they are lying to you, because I wouldn’t be confident God himself has made up his mind just yet.
CUSA Tournament Bracket
Different from previous years, where several teams would get byes into the quarterfinals, this season, only two teams have to play four games, and they don’t even have to do it in four days. They actually get five to win four. The 8-9 seeds will play each other for the honor of playing the one seed. Then typical quarterfinal matchups unfold from there: 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. Then semis happen and then finals. No matter the seeding, nothing gets reshuffled after the tournament starts. To explain, the one seed would not play the seven seed in the semis just because the seven was the lowest remaining seed. The seven would play the winner of the 3-6 game no matter the previous results.
The other major wrinkle to this season’s tournament is the Huntsville location only has one arena available, Propst Arena. With that being said, both men’s and women’s tournaments have to complete the entire tournament between March 12 and March 16 on one court and not two. Therefore, the 8-9’s from both men and women will compete on Tuesday the 12th. Then the 1-8-9 matchup and the 2-7 matchup from both men and women will play on Wednesday. Then the 3-6 and 4-5 quarterfinal games will be played Thursday. Now that there will only be four total semis played, all games are back on the same day Friday, and then the two championship games will be on Saturday.
Therefore, the biggest and possibly most crucial wrinkle could be the fact that the one and two seeds (and 7, 8, and 9) get a huge advantage over the other teams: They get a day’s rest in the middle of the tournament. That’s right. 3-6 play three straight days. If the 8-9 winner somehow makes the semis (which happens every few years), they get a day off to recover while the 3-6 seeds have to keep playing the next day.
There could be some odd results, either from teams that get in a groove and lose it with an extra day off, or from teams that get worn out by the semis or finals because they didn’t get to get off their legs for a day. The coaches with experience may honestly struggle with figuring out how to make the schedule work. Who knows?
But one things is for certain: With 1-2-7-8-9 all having a different path than 3-4-5-6, each seed line will need a different strategy for rest and recovery, along with scouting and strategy.
A team that goes from eighth to seventh gains perhaps the biggest advantage in the whole tournament (besides playing the second favorite out of the box). That team gets rest after its first game if it wins and plays a team on no rest early on Friday that should not be as good as its previous opponent. With only two teams getting rest in the top of the standings, the team that falls to third loses a day’s rest. Even falling in the middle of the standings from fifth to sixth completely changes the path.
The Standings
Breaking Down the Draw
I’ll break down the first round matchups below, but as always, some teams seem to have terrible draws despite higher seeds, and some lower seeds seem to do fairly well despite what you would presume is a terrible draw. On the one side of the bracket is Sam Houston, Liberty, UTEP, Jacksonville State, and FIU. On the other is La Tech, WKU, MTSU, and NMSU.
Some teams stand out as having good draws. Not to be the homer here, but in seed order, I think WKU is the first team with about as good of a draw as it could have hoped for. First of all, because of their early work, WKU somehow holds on to the three seed and avoids Sam Houston. The Tops also get a team in NMSU that they should have beaten twice by double digits (WKU split after giving up a 23 point lead in Las Cruces). Then they get La Tech or Middle, two teams they will be angry at and that they can match up decently against, one way or another. It’s as good as they could hope for.
La Tech and Sam Houston honestly kind of get one of the tougher draws. La Tech gets Middle, who has climbed from dead last to nearly stealing third. Yes they beat them twice, but Middle is one of the better playing teams in CUSA. As a reward for that, their lone good thing is they get an extra day’s rest while WKU or NMSU will be operating on 16 hours’ rest. However, not the ideal matchup for La Tech. Then if they make it past that, they will play one of the hotter teams in CUSA one way or another.
Sam Houston really doesn’t get any favors as the one seed. Other than getting a rest before semis, they have three of the hottest few teams in CUSA coming for them, and all three of their losses are on this side of the bracket: FIU, JSU, and Liberty. They are forced to play a team they lost two in the regular season out of the gate. Then they may get Liberty, who is good and beat them earlier. Then if they get UTEP, they played two close games and UTEP is playing good basketball outside of El Paso for the first time in a couple of decades. Watch out for Jacksonville State. First of all, coaching. Second of all, at 6-10, they were only swept by one of their possible four opponents in the first round, quarters, and semis, and they would only play that that team if they won two games to start with. Purely looking at draws, don’t be surprised if one or none of seeds 1, 2, and 3 make it to the championship game.
The Odds
This is shocking to me that La Tech is that much of a favorite, given that they were swept by Sam Houston and lost a few games. They probably are the best team, but a near 50/50 favorite? If I’m a better, I absolutely considering picking a team not La Tech to win to see if I land the right guess. La Tech is clearly not the 50% favorite to win CUSA. I would put Sam Houston as the CUSA play favorite. I would put WKU as the most talented team. I would put Liberty as perhaps the team that could catch on fire from deep and make a run on top of being one of the better “teams”. I would put La Tech in there as the best team in the conference. I would put them as nearly the most talented, but not offensively. I could even completely understand them being the clear betting favorite. But this is crazy.
The Top Seed
Sam Houston State (20-11, 13-3 C-USA, Projected NCAA Tournament Seed: 15, Chance to Win CUSA Tournament: 18.8%) really had a lackluster resume heading into the season, really wasn’t expected to do much, and kind of backed that thought up in the non-conference. However, once they hit Conference USA play, things sort of clicked in, and they have absolutely looked like the class of the league, continuing to impress us. When will we learn to realize that this is a legit team and they’re not going anywhere without someone actually beating them?
Sam Houston has the tools in Huntsville (I guess both cities in Texas and Alabama, actually) if they can avoid falling apart away from home. Sam lost three games in a stretch of a few weeks, but otherwise was completely unblemished in CUSA play this year. Sam Houston brings toughness, an ability to win playing multiple styles, and the CUSA Coach of the Year. This team is clearly good enough, and their tough non-conference schedule playing a bunch of Power Five Schools clearly prepared them to deal with the rigors of CUSA. Don’t discount Sam Houston. They have a massive chip on their shoulder.
The Next Clear Favorite
Louisiana Tech (22-9, 12-4 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 14, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 46.7%) is probably the best overall team in Conference USA, and was certainly the most consistent team in and out of conference play. La Tech played a quality schedule. La Tech is a team that doesn’t beat itself, but it is vulnerable to a good performance. If La Tech gets bounced out of the CUSA Tournament, it’s either because they had an injury or because someone was better than them that night.
As I mentioned earlier, La Tech has a tough draw, getting Middle, which has played really well and will probably have a decent crowd given how close they are to Huntsville. If they get past Middle, which frankly, they should, they then get WKU/NMSU and then the stop is the championship. La Tech has two guys that at one point looked like the 1-2 favorites for CUSA Player of the Year. These guys are big and capable in all areas of the game.
The Next Tier
Western Kentucky (19-11, 8-8 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 15, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 9.1%) is a team that looked like a much more sexy upset pick a month ago. Now WKU is four losses deep, and no one knows if WKU will bring more of that crap or if they will play like a team that is determined to not take no for an answer.
There’s no denying WKU has star power, with multiple Power Five transfers and top flight JUCO players that really set WKU apart as a load every time out. WKU’s one issue, though has been consistency. For a team with a pretty good record, there have been a ton of ups and downs. Also, from a pure observation standpoint, WKU is yet to put together 40 minutes of basketball this season. There’s always a lapse in concentration. They’re not lazy, but they can get sort of in a trance out there.
Liberty (18-13, 7-9 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 14, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 16%) looked like the clear conference favorite heading into conference play, but they quickly came back to Earth, struggling to handle CUSA’s massive massive players on virtually every roster. Liberty was highly competitive in the Atlantic Sun, where not every team had a big guy that could move and control the paint. Every team in CUSA has players taller than Liberty that can play on at least one end of the court. In fact, Liberty is one of the shortest teams in America. That has been exposed during CUSA play without question.
However, they are still a good team, they still can shoot, and they still could absolutely win the Conference USA Tournament. They are considered the mathematical third favorite ahead of WKU. The reason is because of their body of work, but then again, they have done a decent job salvaging a poor start in CUSA and pulling off a four seed. Liberty is certainly one of my picks to make a run. They have a lot going for them and just need to overcome size to be great. Liberty gets UTEP, a team that beat Liberty in Liberty Arena after Liberty had barely escaped UTEP. The first round draw is not ideal but if they win the first one, watch out for a run from Liberty.
UTEP (16-15, 7-9 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 16, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 5.8%) is another team that was struggling away from home. Despite the distrust away from home, watch for this team simply because they are well-coached and they force a ton of turnovers. Either of those can wreck a game, and when a team does both, you can anticipate unexpected results from them.
Winners of its last three, including two road games, I think it would be safe to say the narrative that UTEP can’t win away from home is squashed. If UTEP is a legitimate threat on a neutral court, we could be in a for a huge surprise finalist.
Middle Tennessee State (13-18, 7-9 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 16, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 1.1%) at one point was 2-6 in CUSA and was looking like an 8/9 game shoe-in. They looked absolutely finished, but a surprising road win at FIU righted the ship, and the Blue Raiders won a couple, then beat WKU, etc. Now, does that mean anything at all? That remains to be seen. MTSU is one of the hotter teams in CUSA. Unfortunately for them, they had a chance to get a 4 seed and lost to La Tech at La Tech.
The problem for the Blue Raiders is La Tech is not a great draw, and frankly a likely matchup against WKU is not a great draw, either. Now if they get NMSU in the semis, my goodness! That would be a complete shocker. However, if they did, they may be the favorites in that one. As a seven seed, MTSU has about as good of a setup as possible. They will play the late game tomorrow and get a rest day before they have to play the semis, a huge “leg up” on the opponent waiting for them in the semis. It must be nice to the be rewarded for plummeting in the standings on the final day.
A Chip and a Chair
New Mexico State (13-18, 7-9 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 16, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 1%) has crept into the conference race despite dismantling the program in the offseason. Despite its ugly record, NMSU is a very competitive team and could give WKU trouble in the first round. NMSU comes into tournament play with reasonable confidence, surprising most of CUSA by finishing near .500. They could have easily been a ten or less win team this season and no one would have been that upset about it.
Nonetheless, NMSU has a decent enough seed to avoid the two best teams in CUSA for at least one round, and they have enough ability to give plenty of teams problems, especially if they can play good basketball on a neutral court. With the need to only win two games to make a championship appearance, anything can happen.
Jacksonville State (14-17, 6-10 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 16, Chance to win CUSA Tournament: 1.2%) is such an interesting case, because they have a CPOY level player in Kyky Tandy. They also have an excellent coach with an incredible “underdog” “four games in four (or five) days” track record. Ray Harper has four NCAA appearances, and they all came from lower seeds needing four games to win instead of three. To say that’s nothing is ridiculous.
However, in this case, JSU winning more than a game would be a real miracle. JSU gets the 8/9 matchup against FIU and then interestingly plays top seed Sam Houston. One thought to factor in that happens fairly often in tournament settings: If JSU wins against FIU, they will have their nerves in check, and SHSU, who has no recent conference tournament success and has never played in a CUSA Tournament, will be shaking out their “game one jitters”. It’s an interesting dynamic every time, because legs can do weird things when they’re given different routines. Nerves and adrenaline can cause all kind of chaos and March. JSU probably has the highest realistic chance of any eight seed in all of college basketball this season.
Florida International (10-21, 5-11 CUSA, Most Likely NCAA Tournament Seed: 16, Chance to win CUSA: 0.3%) has really dealt with injury this season. Late in the season, they have had star thief Arturo Dean (nation’s leader in steals) hobbled with some issues. They’ve also had a couple of other likely starters out most of the season, as well. To have fielded a competitive team is an achievement, and FIU has a real chance to win a game or two. Are they the single most likely team to lose by the quarterfinals? Most likely. However, FIU has “Florida talent” and is always dangerous. Also, with the clear sexiest head coach in Conference USA, that’s gotta be something, right?
In all seriousness, FIU is a capable basketball team with a couple of quality wins in CUSA play. They are not a pushover, and the fact that they’re last place doesn’t mean they’re for sure going home before Friday. They won nearly one third of their games and are always used to playing on a neutral court every season. A team like FIU is used to less of a crowd than a typical college basketball home game, so perhaps that could seriously be something they’re completely used to. I guess we’ll see how raucous the environment is in Propst Arena, but conference tournament settings can be more docile other than the intensity of the individual fans in the stands. How do crowds affect the outcome? We shall see.
Prediction
First Round:
JSU over FIU
Quarterfinals:
Sam Houston over JSU
La Tech over MTSU
WKU over NMSU
Liberty over UTEP
Semifinals:
Liberty over SHSU
WKU over La Tech
Finals:
WKU over Liberty
You may agree or disagree with how I think this goes down. It is an absolute crap shoot, though. I do firmly believe that SHSU and La Tech have two of the tougher draws, both just dealing with tournament dynamics as well as potential matchups.
I think there is a decent chance Jacksonville State beats SHSU. I think there is a very good chance either UTEP or Liberty beats SHSU in the semis if they make it past JSU. That’s a tough road to the finals, and SHSU has negative history this season with three of their four potential opponents. The only team they swept is a team in UTEP that has won three in a row and two in a row away from home.
On the other side of the bracket, I think WKU and La Tech both have pretty good draws all things considered. WKU definitely should like a game against NMSU as long as they show up and play well. NMSU struggles to score and WKU is CUSA’s best offensive team. La Tech should handle Middle, but I really think Middle is playing good ball and could easily upset La Tech given a third chance. It’s tough to beat a team three times in a row, regardless of how good they are, and Middle has been on the rise for the past two months. Then I just really like WKU against La Tech or Middle.
Western will have plenty of juice for MTSU if that happens, given the frustration (and screwjob) in Murfreesboro. If it’s La Tech, duh it’s a tough matchup (and a very even one), but WKU went to Ruston and beat La Tech with relative ease. Also, La Tech has debatable depth. Can they do exactly what they did to WKU in Diddle Arena, playing two guys the full game and another 38 minutes? Can they all stay out of foul trouble? Can they have four guys score 15 or more? Can they get the refs to call enough fouls for 32 free throw attempts?
WKU really screwed itself in the first half, getting down by 13. They were not able to recover from there, and just like La Tech was handled by WKU, so it was in Bowling Green on the reverse.
Ultimately, WKU and Liberty, SHSU, or UTEP would all be in favor of WKU this time around. Liberty gives WKU headaches but clearly has inferior size. UTEP is a really good young team that forces turnovers, but why aren’t they a better overall team if they force the most live ball turnovers in America? Sam Houston is an absolute beast of an opponent and also gives WKU fits. However, WKU is yet to play a good game against them with all kinds of anomalies and still was right there with the Bearkats.
I just think WKU has the best looking draw, and I really think that pays dividends in the course of a tournament. The less a team has to put out, the more likely they are to be at full strength come Saturday. Also, the less situations a team puts itself into position to lose, the less likely they are to actually lose the game. I know that’s shocking.
But the team that usually wins the tournament is usually the team that had to do less to win and conserved energy. It’s not always the case, and once you get to the championship game, you can probably throw away the energy issue, unless it rears an ugly head in the middle of the game via something like cramps.
At the end of the day, watch how hard teams have to play, and watch how much luck they need to win. Sometimes it just comes down to destiny and it doesn’t matter, but sometimes it comes down to who has exhausted the most of their luck.
Conference USA is wide open. I have opinion. I’m sure you do. You’re entitled to yours. But good luck to all of C-USA, and may be the best team win.
Tune in starting tonight and let’s see what happens.
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