By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Conference USA, destined for a massive shakeup in two years when eight of its 14 schools leave for other conferences, is doing its best to add an intriguing final act to its current production.

As the league braces for the coming makeover, it seems to be realizing the potential that its members predicted when it was formed in 1995.

With a month left in the regular season, there's a three-way tie for first place among the University of Cincinnati, Louisville and Memphis, with Charlotte and Alabama-Birmingham lingering a half-game behind.

The league is ranked fifth in the latest CollegeRPI rankings, behind the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the Big East and the Big XII, but ahead of the Big Ten and the Pac 10.

CollegeRPI projects five teams - UC, Louisville, Memphis, Charlotte and UAB - as NCAA Tournament participants. If that happens, it will be the first time C-USA has placed that many teams in the NCAA Tournament.

"I think it's the most balanced it's ever been," UC coach Bob Huggins said Monday. "I think most of the coaches thought that coming in. When you looked at it, there were six, seven or eight teams that had a legitimate chance to finish in the top two or three."

Memphis coach John Calipari credits the new one-division format the league adopted this season for creating a tight regular-season race.

Calipari, whose Tigers competed in the National Division until the league went to the current format, was the most vocal advocate for the new setup because he felt the American Division was stacked with the best teams, reducing the National schools' chances to fortify their RPI rankings.

Teams within each division played each other twice and some members of the other division once. Now every team plays every other team at least once and each school has three "mirror" schools that it plays twice.

"You're seeing what happens when you (go to one division)," Calipari said. "Now the balance of the league is there, but you still have teams rated in the top 10. Cincinnati and Louisville are still where they need to be."

But the new format is not without its inequities.

UAB's three mirror schools, for example, are South Florida (0-7 in the league), East Carolina (1-8) and Tulane (1-7), while Louisville's mirrors are UC (7-2), Marquette (4-5) and Memphis (7-2).

UC has a tough conference road, too. The Bearcats' mirrors are Louisville (7-2), Charlotte (6-2) and DePaul (6-3).

"The reality is that we have too many teams," Huggins said. "As far as getting a true champion, you're not going to get a true champion because everybody doesn't play the same schedule.

"You can look at Louisville's schedule and compare it to other people and it's not even close. Look at our schedule and compare it to everybody else. It's not close as far as who we have to beat to win the regular-season championship. But for the good of the league, to be able to be able to put more teams in the NCAA Tournament, this is the way we had to go."

UAB coach Mike Anderson has heard this reasoning before and doesn't make any apologies for his team's league schedule.

"I keep hearing people talking about it," Anderson said. "But it doesn't matter who you play. The elite guys, they have some other teams as well. We didn't make the schedule."

Without the new format, Anderson said, "You wouldn't be talking about some of the teams that are in there."

If nothing else, the new setup should make for an interesting finish.

"We're going to beat each other up these last seven games," Calipari said. "If anybody goes 5-2 these last seven they're really, really good."

Conference USA standings

RPI	Team	Conf. Rec.	Overall
5	Louisville	7-2	17-3
23	Cincinnati	7-2	16-3
30	Memphis	7-2	16-4
29	UAB	6-2	13-6
34	Charlotte	6-2	14-5
54	DePaul	6-3	13-7
109	TCU	5-4	9-11
98	Saint Louis	4-4	11-8
75	Southern Miss	4-4	10-8
77	Marquette	4-5	12-7
126	Houston	2-7	8-12
169	Tulane	1-7	7-11
170	East Carolina	1-8	8-10
185	South Florida	0-8	6-13

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E-mail: bkoch@enquirer.com