Two games into the second half of the Conference USA season and three teams — Marshall, Rice and SMU — are no longer in contention for the postseason.

The three are 1-7 overall and SMU is 0-4 in league play, making the season’s remaining four games a farewell tour for coach Phil Bennett.

With six bowl tie-ins (Liberty, GMAC, New Orleans, Hawaii, Papa Johns and Texas), the league should fill the openings. Although no team is eligible as of this week, four programs have five wins apiece (East Carolina, UCF, Houston and Tulsa) and all are favored to get their qualifying sixth win this weekend.

That would leave three schools (Memphis, Southern Miss and UTEP) battling for the remaining two spots and entering this weekend with 4-4 marks.

Memphis should be favored in two of its remaining games (UAB and SMU), which would make them eligible. Southern Miss should be favored in three of its remaining four, earning the Golden Eagles their sixth straight postseason trip and 10th in 11 years. And UTEP’s next two games are against Rice and Tulane, which should provide them enough wins for bowl eligibility.

That scenario would create an odd-team out scenario. If Memphis is able to knock off an East Carolina or Southern Miss, it would secure its fourth trip in five years. If Memphis finishes 6-6 by beating UAB and SMU and losing to ECU and Southern Miss, the invitation could be harder to attract.

As impressive as the turnaround from last year’s 2-10 season would be, the Tigers would have no signature wins and no victories over 1-A teams with winning records. And, unlike two years ago, they’d have no marquee national player for ESPN to promote in a mid-December game.

With back-to-back wins moving Memphis into the postseason picture, the next two weekends could determine the U of M’s bowl plans.

I just got the results for the Crappie USA event held Saturday on Grenada Lake.

Not surprisingly, the west Tennessee team of Steve Coleman and Ronnie Capps won the Semi-Pro Division with a seven-fish limit that weighed 13.63 pounds. They were fishing 10 feet of water for crappie that were suspended 5 feet off the bottom.

Suspended fish are usually the hardest ones to catch. But it just doesn’t seem to matter for those guys. They can catch crappie on any lake in any conditions.

Second place in the Semi-Pro Division went to John Harrison of Calhoun City, Miss., and Kent Driscoll of Cordova with 12.84 pounds. Third place went to John Woods of Newbern, Tenn., and Tracy McIntosh of Dyersburg with 12.36.

In the Amateur Division, Clift Powers and Dallas Crass of West Paducah, Ky., took first place with 11.34 pounds.

The Big Fish award went to Dickey Barry of Corinth, Miss., and Ricky Barry of Starkville, Miss., with a fish that weighed 2.24.

The Tigers took today off, which means recruiting time for the coaching staff. This is certainly a big week, since St. George’s guard Elliot Williams is apparently going to announce on Friday. As I wrote on this blog several weeks ago, any information out there about Williams was pure speculation and innuendo and that it should essentially be ignored. In this business, there is a difference between rumor and informed commentary. When I wrote in August that Angel Garcia was going to commit to Memphis, it was because every piece of information I could gather pointed to that commitment. With Williams, it has been clear for a long time that that neither he nor his family has shared any information about his situation. Even the coaches recruiting him have often been left wondering where they stand.

No matter which way it goes for Memphis, the 2008 recruiting dominoes will start to fall shortly thereafter. Clearly, the Tigers are in very good shape with Tyreke Evans, but it’s hard to say at this point whether he’d still be interested in Memphis if the Tigers get Williams. After that, it’s possible not much will happen for awhile. Recruiting decisions may have to be made as the season goes on and it becomes clearer which players off the current team might be candidates to turn pro early. At the wing position, the Tigers are in strong position with Wesley Witherspoon out of Georgia, who will likely be a spring signee. In the frontcourt, Memphis has been recruiting players like Edgar Garibay, a 6-10 forward out of Compton, Calif.

But as most serious Tiger fans understand by now, the 2008 recruiting efforts are merely a warm-up for 2009. At this point, Memphis is in strong position with literally dozens of the top players in the country, including Renardo Sidney (No. 1 on Rivals.com), Xavier Henry (No. 2), Derrick Favors (No. 3), Lance Stephenson (No. 4), DeMarcus Cousins (No. 5), Leslie McDonald (No. 17), Nolan Dennis (No. 21) and Noel Johnson (No. 30).

The Grizzlies were back at work early after taking Sunday off. They conducted an early-morning workout to accommodate the annual tip-off luncheon on the main FedExForum court.

This practice was certainly spirited with head coach Marc Iavaroni emphasizing that the team “needed to clean up mistakes” as they prepared to host the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs Wednesday night in the season opener.

Some observations:

*** Pau Gasol is back. Yes, the 7-foot Spaniard returned to practice and went full speed through all of the contact drills and scrimmages. He said the moderately sprained left ankle he suffered midway through training camp still hurts. But Gasol said there is no way he would miss the regular-season opener.

*** No, Brian Cardinal didn’t get cut as teams around the league trimmed its rosters Monday. Cardinal’s absence today was due to a pretty bad case of the flu, according to Iavaroni.

*** Shooting coach Mark Price returned to the FedExForum practice court. Price could be seen working on free throw shooting with Hakim Warrick after practice.

*** Defense was a big part of practice as the Griz worked tirelessly on when to use their 2-3 zone.

*** Iavaroni got a little testy and stopped practice whenever the Griz showed no interest in playing transition ‘D.’

“How many fastbreak points did we give up in our last game?” Iavaroni asked the group.

The first few guesses came in around the mid to upper-20s. Of course, the correct answer is 36 fastbreak points scored by the Indiana Pacers, whose layup drill last Friday night resulted in an 81-point first half and a 140-113 victory.

*** Darko Milicic continuously was one of the main culprits on defense as he frequently didn’t run back.

*** Mike Miller still is struggling with his shot. He admitted that he doesn’t have his legs after playing all summer with USA Basketball.

*** The Spanish media is starting to arrive. The Griz are expecting 12 Spanish journalists for the season opener. Don’t be surprised if at least half that many follow the Griz regularly given the country’s two biggest basketball stars – Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro – now reside in Memphis.

There were plenty of people who thought Darius Washington was a fool for leaving the University of Memphis early to enter his name in last year’s NBA Draft. Those doubters were proved right when Washington went undrafted, then failed to make the Dallas Mavericks roster.

Washington headed overseas, then returned this season to try to make the world champion San Antonio Spurs team as a non-roster invitee. Washington clearly was a long shot with the Spurs returning point guards Tony Parker, Jacques Vaughn and Beno Udrih.

But with preseason injuries to Vaughn and Udrih, Washington took advantage of his playing time to not only get the attention of coach Gregg Popovich, but to make the Opening Day roster. His second game in a Spurs jersey will be Wednesday night at FedExForum when San Antonio comes to town for the Grizzlies home opener.

Another player with Memphis ties wasn’t so lucky. It was mind-boggling enough that former Vanderbilt star Derrick Byars lasted until the second round of this year’s draft. But last week, the former Ridgeway High player was cut by the Philadelphia 76ers. Last year’s Southeastern Conference Player of the Year is still hoping to be picked up.

THE BIG STORY

Earl Bennett became the all-time leading receiver in Southeastern Conference history on the third play of Vanderbilt’s 24-13 win Saturday over Miami (Ohio).

Bennett tied the mark of 208 catches set by Kentucky’s Craig Yeast from 1995-98 on a two-yard reception, then followed on the next Commodore play with a seven-yarder on third-and-2 from the Vanderbilt 40.

“The last couple of weeks, we haven’t been able to get him the ball very much and you haven’t heard a peep out of him,” Coach Bobby Johnson said. “We’re just glad it happened for him. We’re very happy for Earl. It’s good to see his name at the top.”

The junior was held to just two catches in the South Carolina victory, and only three against Georgia. On Saturday, he finished with eight receptions for 85 yards, giving him 215 in 31 games.

“That’s a remarkable record,” Johnson said. “There have been a lot of great receivers in the SEC, catching balls from a lot of great quarterbacks. Earl has been extremely consistent, he works hard in practice, he’s a total team player. We’ll start building on that record and hopefully nobody can pass it.”

With 2,661 career receiving yards, Bennett has now moved into 10th place in the league in that category.

“Stats and things like that really don’t matter to me; I’m just happy to be playing on a team like this,” Bennett said. “There have been a lot of guys that have played in this conference, and just … to be mentioned among some of the great names, it’s overwhelming for me.”

A look at the league: Read the rest of this entry »

Before I forget (and I normally do), here’s the answer to my previous question. Thanks to those who reminded me of some places I had forgotten.

I was wrong with the 4. It is actually 9.

The answer is…

Minnesota in the HHH Dome, Minneapolis, MN (thanks G)Home of Super Bowl XXXV
Miami in the Orange Bowl, Miami, FL Home of Super Bowl II, III, V, X, and XIII
Tulane, NTSU in the Super Dome, New Orleans, LA Home of Super Bowl XII, XV, XX, XXIV, XXXI, and XXXVI
Tulane in Tulane Stadium, New Orleans, LA Home of Super Bowl IV, VI, and IX
Akron in Ford Field, Detroit, MI Home of Super Bowl XL
South Florida in Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL Home of Super Bowl XXXV
USC in the LA Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA Home of Super Bowl I, VII,
San Jose State (Pasadena Bowl) in the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA Home of Super Bowl XI, XIV, XVII, XXI, and XXVII
and drum roll please
Rice at Rice Stadium, Houston Texas Home of Super Bowl VII
Read the rest of this entry »