There was a lot of tired talk after the Cincinnati Bearcats won Saturday's title game in the Conference USA tournament over North Carlotte Charlotte.
UNCC coach Melvin Watkins did his best to graciously make a point about the difficulty Conference USA imposes on its teams by forcing them to play Friday night semifinals and a noon title game. In two of the leagues three seasons, the team that played the first semifinal won the championship.
Assistant commissioner Brian Teter said the league would look into shifting the starting time of its semifinals, either moving both games ahead or possibly keeping an early evening start time for one game but having the other begin between 4 and 5 p.m.
Next host?
The two finalists as the site for the next Conference USA tournament are Louisville and Birmingham, with the decision expected to come in the next three weeks.
Louisville would hold the tournament in Freedom Hall, which is located near the airport and is more ideal for visiting fans. Birmingham has a downtown arena, but is geographically removed from four of the schools with the largest fan bases - Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and Saint Louis.
Dream team
The only player who wasn't present to receive his all-tournament trophy was Saint Louis guard Larry Hughes, who made a clean sweep of all-star teams in Conference USA: all-freshman, first-team all-conference and all-tournament.
UNC Charlotte forward DeMarco Johnson also made the team, along with UC guards D'Juan Baker and Michael Horton and MVP Kenyon Martin.
Hot coaches
One obstacle to the continued growth of Conference USA is the desire of more established leagues to hire away its coaches.
James Green of Southern Mississippi has become the leading candidate at Alabama, where he once worked as an assistant. Crimson Tide Athletic Director Bob Bockrath, who fired David Hobbs in February, was in Cincinnati this week to watch Green work the sideline. Green said there's been no official talk and that he does not want to hear from anyone until his team's season is done.
Watkins has shown up on the list of candidates at Texas A&M, which is committed to making someone who wants to try to energize its moribund program a very rich man.
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