After closing out its non-league schedule with a big second half against Wofford, Tulane enters Conference USA with its best chance to make waves in several years.

That's partly a function of the team's improvement in the last five games, and due in part to C-USA's weakness from top to bottom.

Even with Tulane's win over Alabama last Sunday and UCF's victory against Belmont a day earlier, the league's 12 teams are a combined 6-33 against opponents ranked in the top 100 according to realtimeRPI.com.

UCF's Belmont conquest (RPI 21) was the conference's best win. The others against top-100 opponents were UTEP over Nebraska (48) and Oregon (60), UCF over South Florida (65) in a result the Bulls reversed this weekend, Memphis over Tennessee (77) and Tulane over Alabama (64).

That's it. And Belmont might be the only one of those victims to reach the NCAA Tournament.

Of course, the Wave (12-3) can only worry about itself, and coach Ed Conroy liked what he saw against Wofford despite an ugly first half that ended tied at 27.



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