By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

UC coach Bob Huggins. (Mike Simons/file photo) | ZOOM |

Seven years as a member of Conference USA have netted the University of Cincinnati's basketball program seven regular-season championships, seven NCAA Tournament appearances, a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed and a national player of the year.

It would seem that C-USA has been good for the Bearcats. But neither athletic director Bob Goin nor basketball coach Bob Huggins, the only coach who has been in the league since its inception, will say so with great conviction.

Ask Huggins if the league has been good for his program and he pauses to choose his words carefully.

"For the most part, it has," Huggins said. "It's opened up a lot of recruiting areas for us."

Ask Goin and you get the same lukewarm endorsement.

"My reaction to Conference USA is that it provides the University of Cincinnati with a vehicle to move on to NCAA play," Goin said. "You've got championships, and championships mean NCAA play. That's the reason you have conferences to start with."

C-USA was formed in 1995, essentially as a merger to provide league competition for those Metro and Great Midwest schools with independent football programs.

ENQUIRER ANALYSIS

• Examining the A-10 • Examining C-USA

The result was an odd mix of public and private schools, some with football, some without, from big cities and small towns. It's a league that extends as far west as Texas, as far north as Milwaukee, and as far south as Tampa.

It's a huge, unwieldy league that its first-year commissioner says is difficult to manage.

"Diversity is not only a strength but a weakness," said Britton Banowsky. "The fact that we have such a wide, diverse geography and diverse group of institutions, there's value in that. But getting everyone on the same page is sometimes a challenge."

And it could get even more unwieldy. Banowsky said there have been discussions about adding a 12th football school (South Florida begins conference play this year) so that the league could split into two six-team divisions and have a playoff for the league championship. But he says that's not a "front-burner issue right now."

The league's strength is men's basketball, with traditionally successful programs such as UC, Louisville, Memphis and Marquette. But with 14 schools competing in basketball, the league's overall Rating Percentage Index ranking has suffered.

As a result, the number of teams C-USA sends into postseason play has been limited.

The best C-USA has done is send four teams to the NCAA Tournament.

C-USA has consistently been ranked as the seventh- or eighth-best conference in the Ratings Percentage Index.

The coaches won't badmouth their own league, but there is a feeling among some that football has hurt the league's standing in basketball.

"I appreciate the fact that coaches aren't saying that publicly," Banowsky said. "I think that given the quality of basketball in this conference, we have to do everything we possibly can to not only preserve that strength, but to grow it."

From UC's standpoint, C-USA has definitely helped the football program. It's unlikely the Bearcats would have played in four bowl games the past six years without a conference bowl tie-in.

Financially, UC gets about $1.3 million per year from the league's complicated revenue-sharing format that includes NCAA Tournament, television and football bowl money.

"Our goal should be $2.5 million per year," Goin said.

Although Goin acknowledges the conference isn't perfect, he disputes the notion that affiliation with C-USA has hurt UC's basketball program. He points to the Bearcats' No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed last year as evidence.

Huggins agrees.

"I don't think it has hurt us," he said. "I think there are teams it has hurt. But we've been very cognizant of who we play in non-conference to make sure our RPI stays where it needs to stay in order for us to get seeded where we need to get seeded (in the NCAAs)."

Among those schools that feel they have been harmed by C-USA is Memphis, whose coach, John Calipari, blames the current two-division format for preventing the league from sending more teams to the NCAAs.

"This league should be getting a minimum of four, possibly five teams in every year," Calipari said. "What's holding the league back is two-divisional play. Teams in one half of the league, the only way they can get in is to win the league tournament. In the other half, the top three teams might have a chance, but maybe only two will get in because they beat up on each other."

Under the current format, teams play the schools in their own division on a home-and-away basis but play four of the schools in the other division only once. They don't play three schools in the other division.

With UC, Louisville and Marquette in the American Division, that makes it difficult for Memphis and some of the schools in the National Division to have enough chances to play higher-rated schools and fortify their own RPIs.

As a result, only one school in the National Division has earned an at-large NCAA bid in the five years since the league split into two divisions.

In an attempt to correct that disparity, the league will move to one 14-team conference next season. Each school will play the other schools once per season but will play three schools home-and-away. Those schools haven't been determined yet, but UC is likely to play longtime rivals Louisville and Memphis twice.

Perhaps the best that can be said about C-USA is that its members haven't devised a better option.

UC, for example, would almost surely listen if, say, the Big East came calling.

"I think the University of Cincinnati is happy right now," Goin said. "Should we always say that this is the ultimate? I don't think anybody can say that. "

Overall records

Conference USA teams since the inception of the league in 1995-96 (through Jan. 6):

School	overall	C-USA	Coaches	NCAA Bids
Cincinnati	199-46	90-18	1	7
Memphis	140-92	68-40	4	1
Charlotte	141-89	67-41	3	5
Marquette	143-81	63-46	2	3
Louisville	137-97	61-47	2	4
UAB	127-100	54-54	23	1
Saint Louis	121-108	51-57	3	2
Southern Miss	116-99	50-58	2	0
Tulane	111-101	43-65	2	2
South Florida	112-106	42-66	2	0
DePaul	89-127	31-77	3	1
Houston	66-110	29-75	3	0
*TCU	22-20	6-10	2	0
*E.Carolina	22-20	6-11	1	0

Joined C-USA prior to 2001-02 season

League's record in non-conference play

Year	record-%
1995-96	121-58 (.676)
1996-97	111-82 (.575)
1997-98	106-76 (.582)
1998-99	103-65 (.613)
1999-00	116-64 (.644)
2000-01	103-82 (.557)
2001-02	135-78 (.634)

Final C-USA RPI

1995-96	4
1996-97	9
1997-98	8
1998-99	6
1999-00	7
2000-01	10
2001-02	8

Number of teams in the NCAA Tournament

1996: 4 (Marquette, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati)

1997: 4 (Cincinnati, Louisville, Charlotte, Marquette)

1998: 3 (Charlotte, Cincinnati, Saint Louis)

1999: 4 (UAB, Louisville, Cincinnati, Charlotte)

2000: 4 (Saint Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul)

2001: 2 (Cincinnati, Charlotte)

2002: 3 (Marquette, Charlotte, Cincinnati)

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com