It is about to grow longer for the teams in Conference USA, who will gather at the Shoemaker Center for the league tournament beginning with a 1 p.m. Wednesday game between Marquette and DePaul, the first of four first-round games that day.
So many C-USA teams are populated by players who be getting their first experience in a big-time tournament atmosphere.
Conference USA is a young league. You know this, of course, because it has been around just three years, the result of an amalgamation between the Great Midwest and Metro Conferences formed in 1995 for the sake of football at schools like UC, Louisville and Memphis.
But it is young in other ways that will have a greater impact on the games to be played at the Shoe. It has not been uncommon to hear C-USA described as being ''down,'' with the league eighth among conferences in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) standings, but it might be more accurate to suggest it is in the process of getting to its feet.
It isn't just Saint Louis guard Larry Hughes, who led C-USA in scoring and became the first freshman in its short history to make all-conference. A majority of the 12 teams that will be in town this week are dominated by players who'll be back for the league's fourth season, and more after that.
''Without question, I really believe that,'' said Tulane coach Perry Clark. ''Last year, the bottom teams kind of really struggled, and some of them had older players. Now, you look at teams on the bottom, most of their players are younger and going to get better. I think the league is going to become more difficult.
''Most of the key players you'll see in the next week will be younger players.''
If you look at the two leading scorers for each team in the tournament, you'll find 13 of the 24 are in their first or second seasons of Division I basketball. Freshmen scored 20 percent of the points produced by Conference USA teams. Nearly 40 percent were scored by first-year players, including sophomores who were ineligible last season and junior college transfers.
Whether they'll be able to perform to their abilities will be one of the more interesting questions answered at the C-USA tournament. At least one precedent suggests these freshmen may play their best basketball.
The last time a league tournament was played at the Shoe, Memphis entered with an 11-15 record but rode the superior play of freshmen Chris Garner, Cedric Henderson and Deuce Ford to victories over ranked opponents UAB and Saint Louis and into the championship game, where the Tigers lost to UC.
''I think we've absolutely hit the wall,'' Greenberg said. ''But I think with tournament play here and the chance for postseason play, these guys could be energized.''
C-USA wound up as an underclassman-dominated league because most members went bust in recruiting from the fall of 1994 through the spring of 1996. Of the 15 members on the all-conference team, only Cincinnati recruits Melvin Levett, Kenyon Martin and Ruben Patterson signed during this period.
Among the 10 players who made all-freshman in the league's first two seasons, two averaged double-figure scoring. There are four freshman this season who've averaged 10 or more points: Louisville's Marques Maybin, Tulane's Byron Mouton, Marquette's Brian Wardle and Hughes. And South Florida's Cedric Smith, who's at 9.8 points per game, would have made it five by scoring three more baskets.
''You fit according to how good your players are,'' said DePaul coach Pat Kennedy, who came from the highly regarded Atlantic Coast Conference. It sounds so simplistic, but when the Big East had Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin, that's when the league was at its height. You start bringing in the quality of players people want to see, and your power rating goes up.''
In a sense, the people of Cincinnati who attend the tournament will be receiving a preview of coming attractions.
In addition to the players who'll return from this season, three schools have compiled top 10 recruiting classes: Memphis with hometown frontcourt stars Terry Rogers and Paris London, DePaul with Chicago talents Lance Williams, Bobby Simmons and Quentin Richardson and UC, with Eugene Land of Roger Bacon High and forward Pete Mickeal of Indian Hills (Iowa) Community College.
South Florida and Marquette also signed top 100 players, and Southern Mississippi adds former McDonald's All-American Neil Reed, a transfer from Indiana, next season.
''I think the league has incredible potential,'' Kennedy said. ''When you take in the markets they've taken, the great traditional programs, that's what you need to make a great league.''
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