The Growing Conference USA

If you asked me 5 years ago if Conference USA would have any teams in basketball in the Associated Press of the ESPN top 25, I would call you crazy.  When the polls came out this year, Memphis was in the top 15 and then once the Tigers slipped out of the rankings, University of Central Florida came into the mix.  With an undefeated record, UCF went as high in the rankings as the number 18th team in the country.  Even though other teams in the CUSA may not be in the top 25, several teams are certainly getting better.  Teams such as Houston, Tulsa, and UAB have made it to the NCAA tournament in the past couple of years and have won a couple of games.
This past year Houston snapped the Tigers 4 year reign as CUSA champions and thus earned themselves an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.  5 years ago, the Memphis Tigers were the only team sports announcers talked about in Conference USA, if they even mentioned the conference at all.  The past couple of years, those very teams have beaten the Tigers and earned themselves a name in the league that is growing very fast.  I expect there to be at least 3 teams representing CUSA in the NCAA tournament at the end of the year with Memphis being one of them of course.