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Doug Smock: Ranking C-USA basketball ahead of conference play

Tell me if you’ve heard this one: From top to bottom, Conference USA basketball is not very good.

Heard that last year, right?

You know this league is good enough to throw a Molotov cocktail into your bracket, but that’s only one team of 14. For every Middle Tennessee, there’s a Texas-San Antonio, a Southern Mississippi and a North Texas.

With conference play beginning at the end of this week, the Rating Percentage Index rankings aren’t kind. Entering Christmas Eve, C-USA had slumped to 25th of 32 Division I teams, according to WarrenNolan.com.

That’s even further down from the 21st or thereabouts the league was pegged at a year ago.