I know they lost Sean Banks, but this is a team who was 2 ft's away from winning Conf USA and capable of making a good run in the tournament.
Sean Banks was the first case that I have ever seen where a team actually got BETTER when a star player left the team.
Here's the article from the Commercial Appeal announcing the UWM game:
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Calipari: Tougher schedule needed
Tigers need to raise their RPI next season
By Gary Parrish
Contact
May 19, 2005
C-USA meetings notes
DESTIN, Fla. -- John Calipari walked out of a room at the Conference USA spring meetings Wednesday morning, all smiles and without a care. Then he was asked if he had heard about the Preseason NIT.
"No," Calipari answered.
You're opening with Wisconsin-Milwaukee. If you win there, you get either Alabama or Miami-Ohio.
"Who?" he asked.
Alabama or Miami-Ohio.
"Oh, geez."
So much for those days of opening with two cupcakes, specifically Savannah State and George Mason.
This time the University of Memphis is starting -- on Nov. 15 at FedExForum -- with a team that advanced to the Sweet 16 last season and returns four starters. If the Tigers get past that presumably they will meet Alabama on Nov. 17. The Crimson Tide spent most of last season ranked in the Top 20.
"It looks like it's going to be another hard schedule," Calipari said. "We're just going to have to be a better team than last year."
The Preseason NIT is a 16-team event consisting of two rounds of campus-site games before four schools advance to New York. Other participants are Duke, Boston University, Manhattan, Seton Hall, Sam Houston State, Missouri, Drexel, Princeton, Army, Temple, New Mexico State and UCLA. Anybody from that group could ultimately be a Tiger opponent.
Memphis already has nonleague games scheduled with Texas, Purdue and Tennessee (all at home), and Cincinnati, Providence and Ole Miss (all on the road). And then there's this:
"We're going to move the East Tennessee State game back to the next year, and we're going to try to move the Austin Peay game back too," Calipari said. "Nothing against East Tennessee State and Austin Peay. Those are good programs with good coaches. We just need to schedule somebody who we think will win more games."
Translation?
"Now I've got a better feel for the RPI," Calipari said. "So we are looking at teams for strength of schedule (purposes) who we think are going to win a lot of games. I don't care what their name is. If they're Division 1 and they're going to have a good record, that's who we want to schedule so that we don't get drilled (by the RPI) like we just did."
Last season the Tigers' schedule was rated 80th, despite games against Syracuse, Maryland and Pittsburgh. The problem was Memphis also played Savannah State (328 RPI) and East Tennessee State (293 RPI).
"I cost us with that schedule," Calipari said. "So I have to schedule smarter."
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Oh, and by the way, your boy Bruce Pearl has made quite an...err, um...impact down in here in Tennessee. He's been quoted in the Memphis paper basically insinuating that UT is the only school that plays basketball in the state. That's the equivalent of a coach from down here going up to coach at Marquette and saying that Marquette was the only decent basketball team in the city of Milwaukee.